The Student Summit, hosted by the SSC is held every two years is an opportunity for the SNAME Student members and SSC to get together in an informal setting on the Saturday following the main Annual Meeting Program. The Student participants discuss their SNAME experience and the various aspects of membership, benefits and everything that encompasses the Society.
On Saturday, 6 November 2010 during the 2010 Annual Meeting
of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers (SNAME), the Student
Steering Committee (SSC) held a Student Summit to better understand the needs
of SNAME Students and find ways to improve the SSC and SNAME. These summits are
held every other year with this year’s being the third one. Information was
discussed using five focus groups of approximately 10 students plus one or more
student facilitators. Non-student SNAME members also sat in on the focus groups
and gave their insight. The focus groups were told to discuss the following
topics:
- SNAME from a student perspective
- The SSC from a student perspective
- Individual Student Sections
- The Student Program at the Annual Meeting
- Student member recruitment
- Student member retention
- Transition from student membership to Young Professional (YP) membership
These topics were discussed and analyzed using a Strength,
Weakness, Opportunity, and Threat analysis (SWOT). The findings and
recommendations of these focus groups are presented in this report.
The SWOT analysis is a strategic planning method developed
by Albert Humphrey of Stanford University used to evaluate the Strengths,
Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats involved in a business venture or project.
It requires specifying the objective of said project or venture and then
identifying both the external and internal factors that could help or hinder
its completion. Strengths are internal characteristics of the project that make
it likely to be successful or at least more successful than its competitors.
Weaknesses are those internal characteristics that give the project a
disadvantage. Opportunities are external chances that would lead to success and
threats are external things that could prevent success.
Please click here to read the findings from the 2010 Student Summit