Starting this week, Mississippi State University’s Bagley College of Engineering will be competing against 31 other engineering programs across the nation in a March Madness style bracket.
Every year, the national chapter of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) partners with Penton Publishing to host a March Madness style event. Topics from previous years include “Best Engineering Toy,” and “Best Engineering Movie,” so this year’s topic is “Best Engineering School in the U.S.”
The first round of voting started Monday. The challenge is organized in a way that matches each engineering program with a competing school, and the program that receives the most votes advances to the next round.
16 lucky voters will be anonymously drawn as prize winners. Each week for the next five weeks, three winners will be chosen and there will be one grand prize at the end of the contest. Texas Instruments, TE Connectivity and Schneider Electric are sponsoring the prizes and will be giving away some of their products.
Sophomore electrical engineering major Leanne Locke said she is excited about the competition. Locke is one of the ECE Ambassadors on campus, which is the group that IEEE contacted to do outreach for the competition.
“I believe we have a very strong chance to win,” Locke said. “Or at least place very high.”
Becca Siciliano, sophomore ECE Ambassador, said she loves spreading the word on campus and recruiting people to help raise awareness for the MSU engineering program.
“MSU’s programs can speak for themselves,” Siciliano said, “But being able to get prospective engineers interested in not only our school, but also opportunities that MSU’s programs have to offer is incredibly rewarding.”
MSU is up against Michigan State this week. Voting opened yesterday and will stay open until Sunday, April 3. If MSU receives more votes than Michigan, the next voting phase will be from April 4-10.
“To me, the best thing about winning would be the possibility of new equipment for labs,” Locke said. “Plus, winning would give us bragging rights.”
Students can vote once for every round that their school participates in. For more information and to vote for Mississippi State, go to http://electronicdesign.com/bracket.
w
