Innovation in the Classroom Podcast with Antonia Nănău of BEST

We are kicking off a new podcast series. Check it out.

Listen to hear some of the brightest minds in engineering education share insights and best practices to empower the next generation of digital talent.

In this podcast, Hannah Straub interviews Antonia Nănău, a student engineer who leads an organization dedicated to technology students.

Summary

The college world is filled with organizations that try to provide development opportunities for the students, and BEST is no exception. They try to provide complimentary education through different courses, they have competitions that connect students with real-world challenges, and every year, they hold events to raise awareness on the importance of learning.

Antonia Nanau is the former president of BEST, which is a European Student Organization that represents nearly 96 technical Universities in 34 countries. She is currently in her final year as a student at the Politehnica University of Bucharest, following an engineering degree in Information Engineering.

Listen to the First Episode of Innovation In The Classroom, to learn about this innovation-driven organization that helps engineering students to develop their skills.

Questions I ask:

If you could tell us a little bit about your background and education? (01:40)
Besides the competitions, do you have any other specialized events that you guys do, every so often? (05:39)
Is BEST very integrated into your community where you are headquartered? And do you do any outreach or is that a priority of your organization? (08:12)
Do you have a favorite part of the organization or a favorite component? (09:08)
Are there any resources or partners that you use software programs from, including Siemens, that you think are pretty valuable for students at this point? (13:40)
Is there anything else about BEST that you would like us to understand or just some parting thoughts about the organization, at least from your experience? (24:00)

In this episode you will learn:

What was like for Antonia to take a year off from college to be the President of BEST. (02:13)
What BEST does as an organization. (03:16)
How the Executive Board at BEST operates. (06:59)
The results of the GEDC student engagement survey. (15:07)
What software vendors, like Siemens, could do to support the student engineers. (19:03)

Stay tuned for our next podcast.

Innovation in the Classroom

Innovation in the Classroom by Siemens explores best practices to empower the next generation of digital talent. In this podcast series, Dora Smith takes you through discussions with leading voices from the world of engineering education who are preparing future engineers in Academia 4.0 to shape the world of innovation.