Graduating students from the Environment and Business (EB) undergraduate program in The School of Environment, Enterprise and Development (SEED) are in Charlottetown, PEI this week to compete as finalists in CSA Group’s 2014 National Academic Challenge.
The all-female team – named “Aveneer” -- joined forces last September to complete the fourth year EB’s capstone project together.
They chose a project working with CSA Group to explore the value of environmental standards, such as the ISO 14000 family, which addresses various standards around environmental management. Through this collaboration, the young women were approached to submit an application for the National Academic Challenge.
“It demonstrates maturity and competency for these students to be approached to compete in this contest,” says EB professor Steve Young. “The CSA Group has identified students who strive for excellence and professionalism – and this team demonstrated that.”
The team will be competing against other students groups by presenting their work in front of a panel of judges tomorrow. When asked what they hope to get out of the competition, each team member had something different in mind. Sophie Liu, the Aveneer’s project manager responded, “To win! Although, I feel like we’ve already won. CSA Group has been super generous and supportive throughout the 402 project and for this competition. Their mentorship and guidance has really helped us all understand how to be more professional and better communicators. I would really like to improve my networking skills at this conference, which might lead to employment somewhere down the road.”
Shrahda Singh wants to meet people and start building relationships with industry professionals. “In the EB program we’re not always exposed to engineering firms and that side of the business world. This competition will have more attendees from engineering and planning type roles so I’m pretty excited to meet them and learn some new things.”
We wish Aveneer best success in their competition Tuesday!