The May/June spotlight was written by Sophia Tan, President of the UCLA ITE Student Chapter.

UCLA ITE appreciates all the support from the Endowment Fund. Moving to virtual events this year, we’ve been able to continue many of our usual activities and adapt to new changes.

This year, our project team conducted a traffic count survey at Sprouts Farmers market for Western District’s Data Collection. Our team of volunteers was able to learn more about vehicle and person-trip counts. Our data will also be the first data point for person-trips for supermarkets! This was also the first time we got to meet some of our new freshmen project engineers in person. We are so happy to be able to continue teaching students about data collection/analysis and provide growth for aspiring transportation engineers.

We also continued our professional development events online, hosting our 6th Annual Student Professional Mixer on Gatherly. The night began with a fun game of virtual human bingo followed by group networking sessions, our usual Mixer raffle, and finally free networking. We appreciate all the professionals who came out to talk to our students. It was great to meet so many transportation professionals and to catch up with old friends, too!

As the school year comes to a close, we are excited for Western District’s Annual Conference. The endowment fund helps us send so many students to attend every year. We can’t emphasize how important it is for students to learn from technical presentations and network with working professionals. Next year, we hope to continue bringing in new members. In addition, our chapter hopes to send officers to next year’s Student Leadership Summit to meet fellow chapters and share ideas on how to grow as a club.

Contributions to the Endowment Fund can be made here.