Their workloads can be notoriously heavier, but Pratt School of Engineering undergraduates have at least one advantage over their Trinity College counterpartsâ_"not only can they take advantage of Duke Student Government, but they have their own Engineering Student Government.
"There are certain issues that only face engineers," said senior Kyle Smith, president of ESG.
His organization seeks to fill the gaps left by more general groups. It is much smaller and "doesn't have the formal flavor of DSG," said Phil Jones, Pratt's senior associate dean of education. It has only eight elected membersâ_"an executive president, vice president, treasurer, secretary, publicity chair, and presidents for the junior and sophomore classes.
"Duke Student Government is more formal and generally more consistent in its activities from year to year, while ESG's function depends on who holds the leadership positions," Jones said.
Pratt administrators require that ESG hold only two eventsâ_"the fall and spring picnics. All other projects are developed and implemented by members of the student government.
As a result, ESG's activities vary from year to year. One of their best-known projects is the weekly Engineering Social, or eKegs, held Friday afternoons. They also provide bagels for engineers every Wednesday morning and run events such as field day and a softball league in the spring. Most activities are funded by ESG's $23,000 budget, which is provided by Pratt's student activity fee. The Engineering Ball, which students must pay to attend, is heavily subsidized.
Although both Smith and Jones agree that their main focus is interaction between faculty members and students, they do emphasize other projects. ESG has initiated a proposal to improve lighting around Hudson Hall and the Teer Buildingâ"both of which construction has rendered much darker at nightâ"and supplemented funding to other engineering groups for special events.
ESG also focuses on involving freshmen in their events because many of their first-year courses are outside of the engineering discipline. This year, ESG ran an advising mixer where first-year students could meet upperclassmen and ask them about schedule planning.
Not all Pratt students feel that the ESG is a major part of their student experience. Junior Gaurav Shukla said that he "didn't know if they've done much new stuff in the last few years."
Huikai Luu, a junior, said she usually meets other engineers through classes, not ESG social functions. Nevertheless, "they definitely do more than DSG," she said.
Eric Gardner, a junior, suggested that ESG could market its events better. "Their programming is not always most visible," he said.
Indeed, Smith said the group's most important project this year is the implementation of an events calendar, both in printed and online forms. He explained that it is crucial to make sure engineering events do not conflict with larger campus events that Pratt students might want to attend. Still, he thinks that they have already reached a large portion of the engineering student body because the ESG e-mail list contains about 400 subscribers.
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