TAPPI Student Summit

By Guest Blogger, Patrick Leasure

After 72 hours of snow, information sessions, and interactions with other paper schools, the 13 NCSU PSE students arrived back from an amazing Student Summit in Syracuse, NY. It was a blast to meet fellow students from others schools that had an interest in paper like ourselves.

I would first like to thank all of our sponsors that allowed the students to attend the student summit for $100: TAPPI, Dr. Lucia and Dr. Hubbe and Alumnus Courtney Pate of AT Kearney Consultants. We would not have been able to send as many students without each one of their contributions.

Some of the topics that were covered at the Student Summit included mini mills, cellulosic developments, and professional development. One of my favorite events was the dinner at Dave and Busters with students. It allowed me to have fun with students from other chapters and talk to them about their interests in paper. The career fair was also a valuable opportunity for students to secure internships and full time positions for the coming year.

Additionally, each year at the Student Summit, there is an engineering challenge. NC State had students on three of the top four teams! Katie Marshall and Lauren Moody were on the team that placed second. They won Best Buy gift cards! Freddie Hobbs, Kendre Kesler, Joe McDonald and Cydney Anderson were also with top four teams!!

 

On behalf of the 13 students that were able to attend, we would also like to thank TAPPI for putting on an awesome conference and we are all looking for to the 100th year celebration of TAPPI in 2015.