AIAA day!

I got a request on my last entry to post more about SWE's activities, but since I spent most of today working on AIAA* concerns, I feel more inclined to post about that for today. But SWE is coming, have no fear!

AIAA stands for American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. I was elected president last year on the basis of 2 years student org experience and senior status. This year, I am seeing that this really was a valid basis to get elected.

Today, most of the officers had a meeting with our two advisors. We ran Prof. Pervan and Prof. Vural (our 'co-advisor') through our (written-out) plan for the semester--apparently we are one of the best-prepared and most enthusiastic groups in recent years. Here's the plan:

1) Get a model airplane, construct it, and fly it.

2) Create a team to enter a competition to design, then build (from scratch) then fly an airplane according to specifications.

3) Have set hours every week when people can come in and use the flight simulator we have.

4) Do tours of labs on campus and corporate facilities (Northrop Grumman, United Airlines)

5) Do workshops by upperclassmen or visitors

6) Publish an email newsletter.

Then, I talked to our treasurer some about choosing the plane and related tools, because we need to submit a proposal for these things to the Finance Board by Sunday night. (Finance Board: student board that delegates funds to student organizations from a common fund that students pay a little into every semester.) Then we presented our plan for our proposal to our Finance Board advisor, who put us on the right path as far as demonstrating the necessity of our purchases. It went quite well. I am now letting our treasurer take care of the proposal.

I am personally stunned by the difference in my experience this year as head of AIAA, as compared to last year as head of SWE. Here's some differences:

1) I start things earlier-I've finally learned how bad procrastinating is; especially where other people are involved!

2) I communicate faster-I respond to emails within a day or two if they require a response and I don't think I ever drop the ball or put it off anymore like I used to.

3) TRUST. I trust my officers and delegate tasks to them; this sounds like the most obvious thing ever, but it was very hard to learn emotionally. Not only is it giving someone a task, but it is also resisting the urge to check in on their progress all the time.

4) I try to set times and dates as soon as possible. I also try to assign tasks to specific people ("[Name] should do this by Monday and send us all an email" vs "Someone should do this soon...") Again, it seems obvious, but seems to require experience (for some of us, anyway) to catch it in the act.

5) I don't feel guilty when things don't go right, even if it seems to be happening constantly. Things happen and life isn't perfect; I shrug it off and move on!

There's other things I've learned that help out a lot; I know most of the professors in the department, I know most of the Office of Student Life staff. I know a lot of great people in Admissions ;-) and in a few other offices. I know leaders of some student organizations on campus. The people I have gotten to know through student organizations far outnumber the people I have been introduced to through classes.

Overall--my leadership experiences at IIT have been invaluable, and my leadership of AIAA senior year seems like it will be a test of all the lessons learned...as well as a few lessons of its own.