UF’s Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers chapter wins gold
When Pedro Camargo started studying engineering at the University of Florida in 2020, he felt like most freshmen do: Lost and a little lonely.
He made friends, but when semesters changed, those friends dispersed into other classrooms. There was no sense of community or social continuity.
But in his sophomore year, the South Florida-bred computer science major dove headfirst into UF’s Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) chapter. It was a game-changer – socially, academically and professionally.
“I find the best part about SHPE is the community,” he said. That community provided study partners, social guidance, feedback on professors, and, certainly, a steady core of friends. It also focused on professional development, which was huge for Camargo, who started working at Microsoft after graduation earlier this year.
Such success continues to catch the attention of the national SHPE chapter, which selected UF as one of six Gold Chapters of the Year – out of more than 300 chapters and 15,000 attendees – at its 2024 conference in California last month. UF’s Gold comes a year after a Silver Chapter of the Year in 2023 and a Gold in 2022.
The national honors are based on the chapters’ professional development, recruitment and retention. UF’s SHPE chapter is 42 years old. The national organization itself just turned 50.
The UF chapter has more than 800 registered members, with about 300 active members. Its cabinets conduct regular workshops, including community service, social engagement, technical skills, marketing and professional development.
“We cover many aspects of student life and academic development. The structure of the organization allows us to have something for everyone,” said UF chapter President Juan M. Valderrama.
Valderrama said social media is one of the chapter’s best recruiting tools these days. Its Instagram account has more than 4,200 followers. Valderrama credits the chapter’s member-retention success on a packed calendar of events; he said the chapter hosted 80 events so far this semester.
As part of its professional development efforts, the chapter partners with 35 businesses, including several large tech employers such as SpaceX.
“These partners get to access the talent pool at UF. They come to our recruitment events. The biggest one we have here is called BBQ With Industry,” Valderrama said. “Most of our students go right into the workforce after graduation. They work at companies that are giants in technology, giants in construction, giants in engineering. Students go to work at Fortune 500 companies. A lot of people go to Microsoft or Amazon.”
UF SHPE hosts events almost every day, he said. These include “boot camp workshops” that cover how to talk to recruiters, how to create effective resumes, how to nail interviews, how to stand out at a career fair.
“Those events are great for getting people started. As a freshman and sophomore, you have no idea about finding a job,” Camargo said. “But the network SHPE gives you provides access to people who have been through the process, people who have worked for these great companies.”
The chapter hosts six first-year leadership programs per semester, as well as graduate workshops for students considering graduate school.
“We have financial literacy workshops. Most students in the chapter are engineers, but they are not getting the financial-literacy aspect, which is so important, in their classes,” Valderram said.
“Most if the students who participated in the convention received an internship or job opportunity,” he added. “In our eyes, that’s a successful convention. More than half the students who went started their professional career.”
Also of note: “SHPE is the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, but we always stress that it is a community for anyone who wants to be a part of it,” Valderrama said. It has many students who are not Hispanic, even in leadership roles.
“Community is something that we value a lot, and that is something that has attracted students,” Valderrama said. “They see that beyond just a volunteer position or a thing to put on their resume, it is a feeling of familia, which is what we call our chapter – Familia.”