As someone who was honored as one of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) New Faces of Civil Engineering in 2021 and has helped several folks with their award applications since then, I wanted to share advice for filling out the award application this year.

For general advice for applying for awards, please check out my previous blog post at https://stemchangemaker.org/2022/03/27/danis-declassified-guide-award-application-success-and-resources/.

The New Faces of Civil Engineering recognition program highlights the next generation of civil engineering leaders. ASCE has honored 10 college students and 10 professionals each year since at least 2010. Professional New Faces are ASCE members 30 years of age or younger as of December 31st with a degree in engineering from an ABET-accredited U.S. college or university, or from an equivalent international educational institution. Collegiate New Faces are ASCE members who are undergraduate students (3rd, 4th, or 5th year) in an engineering program from an ABET-accredited US college or university or equivalent international institution with a 3.0 or higher GPA. Honorees of both programs will receive recognition at ASCE’s OPAL Gala, articles in the Civil Engineering Source, and hometown, local, and national media outlets. Honorees for the collegiate level also each receive a $100 scholarship, while the top student is awarded a $1,000 scholarship.

The application period for the 2024 program is open until November 24^th. More information can be viewed here: https://www.asce.org/career-growth/new-faces-of-civil-engineering

Below is my advice for crafting your award application!

Prioritize Securing a Nominator

While self-nominations are permitted for this award, I would recommend you find a nominator. I would recommend this nominator to be either a leader in your company who is involved with ASCE or even ask someone outside your company that you work with through ASCE to nominate you. I have this as the first piece of advice since this can take a bit of time. I personally asked the CEO at my previous employer to be my nominator because he was a past ASCE Society-level president.

Nominators are great for adding a bit more credibility to your application. Plus a nominator can help hype you up in terms of what you are including in your packet. While I tend to shy away from talking about my accomplishments, this application, or any award application is the place where you need to let all the amazing work you do shine! Another benefit of having a nominator vs. self-nominating is that you get another set of eyes to look over your application before submitting it.

For students, your nominator is your ASCE Student Chapter Faculty Advisor, so make sure that you reach out to them about this award application as soon as possible.

If you are struggling to find a nominator, if you send me your application by November 18^th, I would be happy to serve as your nominator!

Also, don’t forget to send the person who took the time to write you a letter a thank you email, or a handwritten note letting them know the good news if you receive the award!

Nomination Statement and Essay Responses

The next part of the application I would focus on is the nomination statement and essay responses. Note, that while some of these essay responses have a 200-word maximum response, several of the essay responses do not. While I am not saying write a novel for each of these, these responses can be used to get information across that you might not be able to fit into the responses with a maximum word count.

As this is an ASCE award, I recommend that you focus your answers on the work you are doing/have done with ASCE. For all questions, but especially “Provide a statement supporting your nomination.” talk about what makes your story unique!

You cannot start the form and save your progress, so I recommend first typing this all out into a Word or Google Document and then pasting it over once you are ready to submit.

Don’t be afraid to apply again!

There are a few awards that I applied to like this award which I didn’t receive the first year I applied. The following year, I updated my application, changed my nominator to who I mentioned above, and received this honor the second time around. If you don’t receive the award this year, don’t let that keep you from applying again in the future!

Photos

This application asks for one high-resolution headshot and one action shot. Below I have included both of the photos I submitted for my application. For the action shot, I included a photo of me leading a STEM Outreach event since I talked about my passion for STEM Outreach throughout my New Faces application. 

Feel free to reach out to me at DaniTheEngineer.Blog@gmail.com with any other questions.

Good luck with your ASCE New Faces of Civil Engineering award applications!