Alumni Blog

To the graduating class of 2018,

As president of the GOLD (Graduates of the Last Decade) Alumni Council, let me be the first to congratulate you. You are nearly there! In just a little over a week, you’ll have had your last coffee in Pigott, sauntered across the Quad and stepped into a much bigger world. However, as you may have already noticed, this is just the beginning. You will have new opportunities, failures, shifting opinions about the world around you, and relationships that will shape who you are and what you are to become. I remember graduating as a young, ambitious theater major thinking, “Well, I guess I just do this now? But what is this?” It is both a daunting and thrilling feeling, and I can’t help but be excited for you all. It is up to you to divine the journey. If there is one thing that eight years of Jesuit education has imprinted in me, it’s that the best tools that we have are the community we create and the discernment we practice.

A friend once told me, “We have choices to make and that will be the greatest challenge and most significant gift set before us.” What choices will you make? How will you make a difference? I graduated less than 10 years ago and still, I can’t imagine what it is like to be thrust into such a competitive, and culturally divisive environment for the first time, or for some, again. At SU, we are prepared to receive this as a call to action, to live our best life and make the change we seek in the world. But for now, let’s forget about the metaphors, the sage advice, the open questions. You’ve heard this all before. It is going to be a fun run—that I can promise you. And you won’t be running alone. Your fellow graduates and alumni share this common thread, and are here to help you along the way.

Volunteering with the Seattle U Alumni Association and serving as president of the young alumni community, I have had the pleasure to work with a range of diverse and compelling people. Most of these alumni I never knew during my time at SU. Yet, I have gained peers, friends and even a job because of this network. I have come to see that we are all cut from the same cloth, sharing a willingness to empathize, to learn, to question, and to grow. That age old Jesuit phrase of cultivating the “whole person” truly is the greatest gift we receive with this education. I invite you to build upon the community you’ve created here at Seattle U by joining the young alumni community, also known as Graduates of the Last Decade (GOLD), at social events, career programming and service and other opportunities. You will meet new people, learn and broaden your perspectives. From there, trust your instincts and the choices you make. That will take you where you didn’t know you needed to be.
The best of luck, class of 2018, and welcome to the Seattle University Alumni Association!

Regards,
Damian Peterson ‘09
President, GOLD Alumni Council

While the young alumni community is a fun and active group, it’s not the only alumni community you can join. We have a vibrant chapter and affinity group program that connects alumni regionally, and through shared interests, experiences and identities. African American Alumni, Women of SU, International Alumni, Bay Area Alumni Chapter and the Hawaii Alumni Chapter are just a few of the groups you can connect with.

Student Leaders of Tomorrow Solving Problems Today

Seattle University’s location in the heart of a booming city provides the unique opportunity to partner with leading businesses on real-world projects for engineering and computer science students. As they learn from these companies and their employees, our students prepare for successful careers after graduation.

One example of such a partnership is through the Seattle University College of Science and Engineering Project Center. Small teams of engineering and computer science students are partnered with industry sponsors and mentored by Seattle University faculty to provide solutions to real-world problems. Over the course of the academic year, student teams are responsible for almost everything expected from a professional consultant, including project management, budgeting and scheduling. The students collectively work 1000 hours to design and deliver their prototype, software application or proof of concept. Projects Day, coming up next month, is the culminating event of this year-long experience for the students. At this event, student teams present their work to the public, their sponsors and fellow classmates.

We spoke with Chris Payne, a 2000 mechanical engineering graduate and director of Boeing’s Airplane Systems Team, to learn what it means to sponsor a project and why he’s stayed involved with Seattle University. Projects Day is nothing new for Chris, who has been a member of the Mechanical Engineering Advisory Board since 2008. He has attended and participated in Projects Day for many years.

(Chris Payne and his team aboard a Boeing aircraft.)

“Before I was on the board I would come out to Project Day to see the projects. It’s a fun opportunity to meet the students, ask them questions about their work and hand out business cards.”

As a project sponsor, Chris assigns a manager from his team to act as a liaison between Boeing and the Seattle University students on the project. Chris works with that manager to ensure the team gets the support they need and to ensure that he stays informed on the direction the project is headed.

The project Chris is sponsoring this year is focused on improving the windshield wiper motor for commercial airplanes. A great opportunity for students, if they develop a viable option is will be put into production.  “It’s a great opportunity to get the students involved. They’ve come out here to tour the airplane and learn about the issues we are up against.” Chris went on to explain that while a windshield wiper motor may not seem exciting, they are unreliable and when not working properly, damage a plane’s windshield, resulting in costly repairs and delays.

“I value working with the Project Center and the students because of the opportunity to shape the learning of the students who are about to enter the workforce, and help them connect the dots between their education and a real-world problem,” Chris says.

Chris encourages fellow alumni to attend Projects Day saying, “You have to come meet the students and see their capabilities and skills and the passion that the students have developed. You’ll also see what these students are going to bring to industry. They aren’t just solving a paper exercise. They have tackled real-world problems and have been thoughtful about how to bring them to market.”

Interested to see how Chris’s team tackled the problem of the windshield wiper motor? Come see for yourself during Projects Day on June 8th.

 Register here.