She humbly claims to have just a little more luck and less sleep than the average person, but senior mechanical engineering major Ellen Skow is nothing short of an outstanding student.
Skow received an Outstanding Engineering award from the Orange County Engineering Council Honors and Awards Banquet last month at the Hilton Waterfront Beach Resort in Huntington Beach.
“This is a great honor for her, the Mechanical Aerospace and Engineering (MAE) Department, the College of Engineering and CSULB to be recognized among the outstanding engineering students from all universities in Southern California by a prestigious organization such as OCEC,” said Jalal Torabzadeh, professor, advisor and vice chair of the MAE Department, who also sponsored Skow on behalf of the Society of Petroleum Engineers.
Students from Cal State Fullerton, University of California Irvine, University of California Riverside and University of Southern California also received the award from the nonprofit organization.
According to the OCEC website, the annual Outstanding Engineering award recipient must stand out among his or her peers through achievement in a particular area in the engineering, technological and scientific community.
Other awards included the Corporate Award, Outstanding, James E. Ballinger Engineer of the Year Award and Distinguished Government Engineer Awards.
Skow, a president’s scholar, maintains a 3.9 grade point average. She is currently involved on campus through engineering society Tau Beta Phi and mechanical engineering honor society Pi Tau Sigma.
She is also a member of the College of Engineering Associated Engineering Student Body Board of Directors, Brass Ensemble, Concert Band and campus residential halls.
“I was honored to receive the Outstanding Student Award from OCEC,” Skow said. “It is gratifying to be recognized for the things I have done as an undergrad at CSULB, but I do the extracurricular work because I am interested in learning more about the topic or I care about it.
“I stay motivated in the classroom by remembering my goals, remembering other problems that I have overcome in the past and remembering that there is a whole world out there,” she added. “So, it is OK to let little things go in order to focus on something more important.”
Skow was an acoustic engineering research intern with the German Academic Exchange Service in the summer of 2009. She designed and conducted experiments, and developing a MATLAB script to convert test data in Berlin, Germany.
She now interns at The Boeing Company. Her training involves stress analysis of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner’s floor panels and improving training efficiency through production of training and procedural documentation.
“I have had a lot of support from friends, faculty and staff on campus, as well as from my family,” Skow said. “These people have given me guidance, encouragement and support while here at CSULB, and those connections make a huge difference.”
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