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September
20, 2004 Vol. 75, no. 4F
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YOU SIEB IT:
ChemE senior Saba Parsa says that organizing events for the new
Society of Iranian Engineers at Berkeley has been extremely fulfilling.
Not only is the society a place to network and get help with school,
but it is a convenient forum to see friends. |
Iranian
engineers form society that mixes close friendships and professional
networking
Most engineering societies
are started with the goal of fostering professional networking and academic
support. In the process friendships are forged. The Society of Iranian
Engineers at Berkeley (SIEB) took the opposite approach. They turned
a close-knit group of friends into a student society.
When a group of Iranian engineers started meeting for weekly chat sessions
a couple years ago, they had no intention of starting a student group.
But as the group grew and bonded, the students began organizing events
such as picnics and hikes and gathering at people’s houses. Pretty
soon the machinery of an organization was in place and they decided
to make it official.
“We are a very small minority in the engineering school and we
wanted to have an official group, accessible to all Iranian engineers,
that offered the support system and community that other ethnic groups
in the College had,” says SIEB member Farzin Shadpour.
The group became official
in February 2004 and held their first large-scale event in May, an alumni
dinner with more than 100 guests.
Berkeley Mayor Jerry Brown sent his Iranian assistant to the dinner
to declare that day “Society of Iranian Engineers’ Alumni
Gathering Day.”
With only one graduating class under its belt so far, the group looks
forward to eventually having a much larger alumni network to exploit
for professional networking.
“Other engineering groups help each other with networking both
in school and out. We wanted to establish that for ourselves,”
says former SIEB organizer ChemE senior Saba Parsa.
Currently, the group has an e-mail list of 85 people, a dedicated core
of 15 members, and an average attendance of 25 to 30 people per event.
SIEB’s culture is an interesting mix of engineering precision and
laid-back spontaneity, with a carefully researched and written constitution,
and a flexible wait-and-see attitude about the group’s mission.
Because it’s so new, SIEB’s members are still figuring out
what the organization will be and do.
So far, SIEB has sponsored a host of professional talks by Iranians
in industry, giving group members role models and opportunities to network.
Many of SIEB’s members are foreign-born Iranians or Iranian Americans
who were raised in Iran. Parsa, like many of her SIEB peers, came straight
to Berkeley from Iran to study engineering. She says an organization
like SIEB would’ve helped ease her culture shock.
On the other end are members who joined SIEB to get closer to their
Iranian roots. EECS grad student Hormozd Gahvari was born in the U.S.
and didn’t know many Iranians growing up. Joining SIEB was his
opportunity to reconnect to the culture. He says SIEB’s social
network has helped him deal with the stress and pressures of his coursework
and research.
There is still plenty of fun to be had and picnics to be planned, though
Parsa says that even social events are executed with an engineer’s
eye for perfection and uber organization. Active members such as Parsa
put in more than their share of time planning events.
“The driving force of this group is the students who give freely
of their time and energy. They want to make a difference for other students,”
she says.
For more information go to sieb.berkeley.edu.
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