Transform your future: CSUB hosts Engineering Day

NSME welcomes 460 high school students for annual event

By California State University, Bakersfield

March 16^th, 2026

High school students visiting California State University, Bakersfield were encouraged to transform their future as part of Engineering Day, an annual event put on by CSUB’s College of Natural Sciences, Mathematics and Engineering (NSME).

Around 460 students came to campus for the Feb. 20 event, where they learned more about engineering as a whole and CSUB’s engineering programs, heard about engineering careers from CSUB alumni and met with representatives from local employers in the industry.

The university’s annual Engineering Day coincides with National Engineers Week, a celebration of everything engineering. NSME Dean Dr. Jane Dong spoke about this year’s “Transform Your Future” theme.

“We’re engineers — we don’t wait for the future to happen, we build it,” she told the students. “We design solutions and we turn ideas into reality. Engineering is not just about mathematics and science. It’s about creativity. It’s about teamwork. It’s about persistence. It’s about solving real problems that impact people’s lives.”

While engineers can transform everyone’s future with new innovations and technology, the students at Engineering Day could transform their own futures with the decision to pursue a degree in engineering, electrical engineering or computer engineering at CSUB.

CSUB's engineering programs continue to grow. Dr. Dong shared with the students that due to demand from prospective students, NSME is in the process of creating a mechanical engineering degree. Another exciting development is the college’s new Energy Innovation Building, which will be ready for future students in two years.

Dr. Nick Toothman — an associate professor in the Department of Computer and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science — led a presentation on why students should consider CSUB for their college plans. Among his top reasons were CSUB’s expertise and research, dedicated faculty and excellent facilities, small class sizes that let students get to know their professors and ABET-accreditation and free industrial certificates that will help them get established in their careers after graduation.

All engineering students wrap up their degree programs with a senior design project, but NSME has recently been working with local industry partners to sponsor these projects, which Dr. Toothman said has been a game-changer for students.

“You're not just on your own thinking of what to do for a project,” he explained. “You have real-world leads from partners that actually needs something completed.”

NSME Dean Dr. Jane Dong welcomes students to Engineering Day.

Dr. Andrea Medina, NSME’s director of grants and outreach, hosts Engineering Day.

Dr. Nick Toothman — an associate professor in the Department of Computer and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science — leads a presentation on why students should choose CSUB.

Sandra Peters, a 2018 CSUB alumna, talked to the students about her journey to electrical engineering and her current job as an electronics engineer at Edwards Air Force Base. As a student at West High School, Peters knew she wanted to go to college but wasn’t sure what she wanted to study. After first considering art and then nursing, Peters ultimately was encouraged by a family friend to take an introductory engineering class.

“I absolutely loved it,” she told the students. “The professor every week would bring in a new professional to come speak to us on their discipline. I learned a ton, because prior to this, I didn't really know what engineering meant or what it was. It gave me a lot of insight into what engineers actually do.”

Following graduation, Peters worked at a local construction company but felt like “a baby engineer” compared to her senior coworkers. Putting her academic knowledge to practical use was challenging at first, until Peters slowly gained her confidence — enough to want to pursue an even bigger challenge by working in the oil and gas industry. Once comfortable there, she was again ready for something new and applied for a job at Edwards Air Force Base.

“The one thing that sticks out to me was something that the director that sat in on the interview told me that day: all my experiences up to this point have brought me to where I am today,” Peters recalled. “Everything has brought me up to this moment to where now I get to work out at Edwards Air Force Base and get to work on airplanes. And I will say, my job’s pretty cool.”

As an electronics engineer for the special instrumentation squadron, Peters works on instrumentation modification. When her team gets an aircraft from a supplier like Lockheed Martin or Boeing, she explained, they modify it with systems used to report and transmit data. For Peters, this means creating wiring diagrams.

“I always wanted to make sure I loved what I did because I never wanted to feel like I was working,” Peters said. “I can honestly say what I get to do day-to-day doesn't feel like work. It's hard sometimes, but it's fun.”

Following her presentation, Peters stuck around for an alumni panel, where she was joined by fellow CSUB engineering grads: Kalyn Dunham (Class of 2020), a systems engineer at Serban Sound & Communications; Alfredo Arevalo (Class of 2020), an instrumentation operations engineer at Edwards Air Force Base; and Lailah Garrido (Class of 2025), engineer at Rain for Rent. Like the younger students in the audience, they all attended Kern High School District schools.

Panelists were asked about the most challenging part of their jobs. For Arevalo, troubleshooting when something doesn’t work is both his favorite and the hardest part of his work, a sentiment Garrido agreed with for her own job. Peters said with multiple generations of engineers, from newbie college grads through senior professionals with decades of experience, trying to find a cohesive language can be tricky.

“It’s definitely keeping up with the newer technologies,” Dunham said. “I think that has always tended to be the most challenging part, but it is the most fun as well, and the most rewarding.”

When talking about why they chose CSUB, the panelists agreed affordability and proximity to home played a big role in their decision. They knew it was the right choice, though, when they experienced the quality of education for themselves. Arevalo recalled being made fun of for not going to a bigger or out-of-town university when telling his high school classmates that he was staying in Kern County to go to CSUB.

“When I graduated CSUB, I think it made me more prepared than a lot of them were,” he said, pointing out that he and Peters are leads on many projects at Edwards. “A lot of my colleagues that I work with now come from those universities, and they come to me for answers. So don't ever let them tell you that CSUB’s not a really good university, when in reality, it can prepare you as just as well as all those other universities.”

Sandra Peters, a 2018 CSUB alumna and electronics engineer at Edwards Air Force Base, gave a presentation on her journey to engineering.

Dr. Medina moderates a question-and-answer panel with alumni (from left to right) Kalyn Dunham, Alfredo Arevalo, Lailah Garrido and Sandra Peters.

CSUB engineering alumni (from left to right) Kalyn Dunham, Alfredo Arevalo, Lailah Garrido and Sandra Peters shared their experience at CSUB and in engineering careers.

Lailah Garrido (with microphone) answers a question asked by a student off stage.

After the panel, students were split into three groups to take turns touring the campus, meeting representatives from local industry employers at a career fair and learning more about NSME overall.

Mia Hovsepian was one of 36 students visiting CSUB from Taft Union High School’s Oil Technology Academy. She said she has always wanted to become an engineer.

“I love mathematics, I love problem solving, I love creating and building things,” she said. “We’re doing a unit in Oil Tech right now working on connecting electricity, and it’s really fun. It’s easy right now, and it’s going to get harder, but I’m really excited and would love to learn how to make more complex machines.”

Hovsepian is already taking dual-enrollment courses at Taft College, so it’s safe to say college is on the horizon for the future engineer. With family in Texas, she’s considering going away for college, but she likes CSUB too, especially with a mechanical engineering degree in the works.

Keagan Hackler, a senior at Taft Union High School, said he wanted to come to Engineering Day to see what CSUB had to offer. He plans to attend Taft College first and is keeping CSUB in mind as an option when he’s done there. He was also happy to hear about the planned mechanical engineering degree.

Hackler said his biggest takeaway from Engineering Day was the importance of being open to new experiences and “finding a job that doesn’t feel like a job.”

Hovsepian and Hackler’s teachers, Ted Pendergrass and April Conners, enjoyed Engineering Day too.

Pendergrass’ favorite moment came from the panel, when alumni emphasized that failing and retaking a class doesn’t mean a student isn’t cut out for engineering. A lot of students are scared of something being too hard, he said, so it was encouraging to hear successful engineers talk about their own perseverance through tough classes.

“I hope that they realize that they have really great opportunities for higher education close to where they live,” said Conners, a CSUB alumna herself. “They don't have to go out of state. They don't have to go far from home. CSUB offers really great programs, and they can live at home while they're going to school and save a lot of money.”

Fab Lab intern Laura Leon speaks with visiting students.

A representative from Kern Energy speaks with students at the Engineering Day career fair.

A representative from Naval Air Warfare Center speaks with visiting students at the Engineering Day career fair.

Fab Lab intern and member of the CSUB Robotics Club Brhyona Thomas speaks with a visiting student.

Dr. Zhongzhe Liu, chair of CSUB's Dept. of Physics and Engineering, speaks with visiting high school students at the Engineering Day career fair.

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Footnotes

Story by Kelly Ardis, communications specialist, College of Natural Sciences, Mathematics and Engineering (NSME); Photos by Arthur Schneider, multimedia student assistant

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FootNotes

Story by Kelly Ardis, communications specialist, College of Natural Sciences, Mathematics and Engineering (NSME); Photos by Arthur Schneider, multimedia student assistant