The Student Endowment Fund is happy to continue to support student attendance at the Western District Annual Meeting (WDAM) by providing 2 Regional Travel Scholarship per year. Students who are interested in attendance to WDAM next year is encouraged to apply to the scholarship by April 15th to the Student Funding Initiatives Committee Chair next year (link). All applications are reviewed and two winners are awarded $500 to support travel, lodging, and needs associated with attendance to the annual meeting. Thank you to the ITE community for your contributions that helps make this possible!

We are excited to announce our second winner – Lindsey Housinger. Please see below for a brief recap of her time at the conference.

This past June, I had the pleasure of joining six of my fellow USC ITE members up the state to Sacramento to participate in the ITE Western District Annual Meeting. One of my goals for this trip was to reconnect, and forge new connections, with fellow students from the Western District. Thankfully, USC ITE was chosen to host the Kell Competition, where students played a board game by our design. In teams of two, students had to balance their own transit agencies budget to increase sustainability, ridership, accessibility, and reliability while purchasing stations (named after iconic Sacramento locations) and being faced with crucial decisions/occurrences. Through this, I was able to walk around the tables of players, chatting with as many students as possible to answer questions, talk strategies, and get to know them a little better.

Over the following three days, I joined several technical sessions where professionals gave presentations based on their research and ideas. Some of which I joined included topics such as Vision Zero/Safety, University Research, and Transportation Legislation. As a student, it was extremely insightful to hear up and coming research on topics I have only just begun to look into myself, or that I have not even considered before. I felt like the lineup of technical sessions allowed for those of many interests within the field, like myself, to find multiple presentations of interest.

The student centered activities ended up creating some of my highlights of the conference. The two that stood out in particular for me were the Networking Luncheon and the Mitey Race. During the Networking Luncheon, student chapters were split up to discuss the challenges each chapter faces. I was able to gain valuable information and tips from other chapters to bring back to USC ITE during this exercise. It was valuable to have that open space to express our individual concerns as a chapter to hopefully improve the student aspect of ITE as a whole. The Mitey Race gave us a chance to explore parts of Downtown Sacramento. As someone who has never been to the city, it was a great experience to walk around some historic sites, such as the California State Senate building just a few streets down from the conference hotel. Plus, it allowed my competitive side to shine through as my race partner and I played against our fellow ITE students.

Outside the formal programming, I was able to explore additional parts of Sacramento on my own. Some of my USC peers and I took a field trip to Old Sacramento where we explored the shops and attractions that give the area its character. I especially enjoyed next to the Sacramento river, hopping into the Delta King Hotel (located within a riverboat from 1927) and catching views of the golden Tower Bridge. Luckily, I was pretty well versed in important Sacramento locations due to our Kell Competition game, so I was able to point out iconic places as we took a drive through the rest of the city.

I had an amazing time at this year’s ITE Western District Meeting. It was well worth the seven hour drive up from Los Angeles to be able to experience the city, the education, and the connections with everyone, from students to professionals, I interacted with. Thank you to the Western Districts leadership for affording me the opportunity to attend this year’s meeting. I cannot wait to attend next year’s conference in Long Beach!