Amid midterm season is National Engineers’ Week, a week dedicated to the achievements of engineers. Last week, the Viterbi Klein Institute for Undergraduate Engineering Life hosted events for Viterbi students, including a start-up career fair, an engineering carnival, an engineering Olympics and a talent show where students showed off their talents in areas outside of engineering.

The talent show, which took place on Wednesday, has been a staple at USC since the inauguration of National Engineers’ Week in 2008. It’s usually a highlight of the week, according to KIUEL president Devin Martin.

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“The talent show gives students a way for them to come in and show off their skills beyond just programming, beyond just robotics, beyond just building the next spaceship,” said Martin, a senior majoring in computer science and business administration. “We want them to be able to show their diverse talents to the engineering community. We also are using it as a way to bring the engineering community together.”

Life for many engineering students is very solitary, Martin said. Students might spend all day alone behind a computer coding or in a lab observing chemical reactions. Martin said many Viterbi classes don’t involve as much collaboration as other schools do. 

Events like these aim to bring the various kinds of engineers together and create a community, said Christina Stone, the event & programming chair of KIUEL and a senior majoring in chemical engineering. The goal is to create a larger and more inclusive community of all engineering students and to get people out of their bubbles.

“Engineering, as a major, is generally pretty stressful,” said Michael Qi, a sophomore majoring in electrical and computer engineering. “Events like this, you get this energy, it gives a chance to get away from the books, get away from my computer; just chill and have fun.”

Tommy’s Place hosted the talent show, with low lights and all eyes on the colorfully lit-up stage. The audience saw various musical performances and a stand-up comic. 

Another set of performers, and one of the talent show’s partners, was the Musicians’ Club at USC. The club, composed mostly of engineering students, encourages them to explore their passion for music, Martin said. For the event, the Musicians’ Club performed a setlist meant to convey the life of an engineering student with songs like Olivia Rodrigo’s “brutal” and Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer.”

Rohan Gupta, a senior majoring in computer science and treasurer of the Musicians’ Club, said the club started as a way to let non-Thornton students explore music as a hobby and a way to create community among beginners. Martin reached out to Gupta about the opportunity to play before the talent show started to serve as an opening act.

“It’s great to have something that allows me to be more than just a Viterbi student at USC,” Gupta said. “And just be more well rounded in the sense I get to explore everything that I want to explore. Whether that’s an academic focus, like it is within Viterbi, or a passion outside of it, like music.”

After securing a budget and event list, Stone said the organizing committee faced a difficulty in how much the week’s events rely on outside partners and vendors. 

“It took a lot of persistence, making sure that everything ran smoothly,” Stone said. “Things don’t always go according to plans, and [we were] just dealing with those hiccups along the way. It was kind of bumpy here and there … We were able to rally and get it all done.”

KIUEL also hosted a start-up career fair on Wednesday that invited more than 20 alumni who have founded start-ups looking to recruit students for internships and full-time roles. On Friday, there was a L’Oréal “Brandstorm Demo Day,” in which students competed to place in the international competition and get a three-month internship with L’Oréal in Paris.

The group held the Engineering Olympics inspired by MIT and Caltech on Saturday, in which students competed in bridge-building and speed-coding, among other challenges. Martin said he hopes KIUEL accomplished its goal of bringing students together.

“Celebrate yourself; you made it to USC Viterbi,” Martin said. “Know that USC Viterbi is not just a place for school, but a place for fun, for connection, for building your network, and for making lifelong friends and memories. That’s what we’re hoping to accomplish with these events. We’ve been able to do that for the past 20-plus years, and we’re hoping to continue on the legacy here.”