San Diego Beta Delta

ANNUAL SUMMARY REPORTS

2023-2024

During the 2023-2024 school year, Pi Tau Sigma remained quietly active and supportive of activities within the Shiley-Marcos School of Engineering at the University of San Diego. April 23, 2024 marked the initiation of 6 new members of PTS–a group whose intelligence, work ethic, and energy will be welcome within the society. The 6 new members, Daniel, Gabrielle, Jed, Naina, Jazmine, and David, enjoyed the initiation ceremony along with donuts courtesy of Dr. Huang and the previous PTS officers Andrew and Ryan. During the ceremony, David, Gabrielle, and Jed were elected as President, Vice President, and Treasurer respectively. They are excited to embrace these new roles and for the school year to come. PTS plans to work in conjunction with other clubs on campus like the Society of Women Engineers, SHPE (Society for Hispanic Professional Engineers) and NSBE (National Society of Black Engineers). This will allow the chapter to grow and do good work within these great groups of students. PTS is so excited to grow and continue to honor the vital role that professional engineers play within communities around the world.

2022-2023

Over the course of the year from 31 March 2022 to 29 March 2023, there were not many activities to report from the San Diego Beta Delta Chapter. On 30 March 2023, an initiation was held for Ryan, Andrew, and Priya. This included the current PTS president and vice president reciting the traditional PTS induction ceremony to the initiates and concluding the event with a celebratory pizza party. During the pizza party, it was determined that the new officers for the coming year would be Andrew as president, Ryan as vice president, and Priya as treasurer. In the coming year, Ryan and I plan to hold volunteering events with local foundations such as Surfrider or FIDO. We also plan to co-host events and meeting with other professional honor societies at USD. An example of this would be co-hosting a meeting with the USD ASME club. Over the course of the year, we hope to grow the USD Beta Delta Chapter and induct many more new members.

2018-2019
Initiations
University of San Diego’s (USD) Beta Delta chapter inducted ten new members whose candidacy was dependent on good academic standing and within the top 25% of their cohort.  Students who have senior standing but are in the junior cohort must be as high as the top 10% of their cohort.  Before sending out invitations, the current executive team reviews a list of eligible members provided by the chapter advisor.  If any executive members found any issues with any candidates, they would speak forth and the group would vote – majority rules.  At this point, the final list of members (none eliminated this year), were sent back to the chapter advisor to invite.  A single initiation for the 10 new members was conducted on the 30th of April 2019.  After the initiation, the current president and vice president facilitated the selection of new executive members.  This was done by explaining each position and having interested newly inducted members give speeches about themselves and their qualifications for each position.  From there, the newly inducted members would vote for their new executive team.  In order to keep members from knowing who was voting for who, we had all members cover their eyes during voting and hold up a fist.  When a candidate’s name was called, members would open their fist to vote yes on that candidate.  Closed fists implied no vote.     
Chapter Activities
Chapter meetings were only held once per semester to brainstorm and move forward with activity ideas.  There was an additional meeting in the Spring for executive members to validate new candidates.  This year the chapter managed only a few activities and all activities were academically related.  During midterm and finals seasons, our Pi Tau Sigma chapter hosted study sessions with snacks as well as tutoring sessions for lower-class students.  See images below of members studying with and tutoring non-members in Robotic Kinematics and Modeling.  Pictured is vice president Danielle Gadbois reviewing notes as students Nathan Hoong and Brian Lee go over some practice problems provided by vice president Gadbois and president Christian Yee-Yanagishita.
Other
This semester, Pi Tau Sigma members took time to get to know each other better.  Once per month, any available members would meet at the local brewery for trivia night.  This was a great opportunity for the members to practice our trivia skills as well as get to know each other better.  This was especially valuable for the executive team as it allowed us to work better together.  Additionally, growing bonds between members allowed us to share our experiences with finding jobs and notify others of companies and positions that others may want to apply to.  Additionally, within the chapter, members had a Google folder with all of our resumes which other members could either use for reference or suggest edits to other members.  This was a great way for members to improve their resumes and see how others are portraying themselves to companies.