National Society of Black Engineers at Virginia Tech
Culture. Excellence. Opportunity. Leadership. Community.
Become a Member!
Who Are We?
Welcome to the home of the Virginia Tech Chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE). We welcome the entire STEM student body to participate in the amazing benefits that NSBE has to offer! Our mission is “to increase the number of culturally responsible Black Engineers who excel academically, succeed professionally and positively impact the community.”
What Do We Offer?
NSBE at VT understands the stress and importance of employment in the engineering world. Which is why we host a multitude of different events that allow our general members to form community, communicate with companies, and receive job and internship opportunities.
Next Generation Leaders
NSBE at VT strives to provide its members involved with different leadership opportunities within NSBE to gain experience and prepare them for their future careers. These opportunities come in the form of our Undergraduate Council and Executive Board both of which elections open every year. These offered positions can give very crucial team management and several other important skills that companies are always looking for.
Helping Our Community
Part of NSBE’s mission statement is to increase the number of Black engineers. We do this by being involved in the community of not only NSBE Jr. Chapters, K-12 students from around the country, but also local citizens of the New River Valley area. Our programs PCI and TORCH allow us to do this by connecting with students interested in the field of engineering to motivate and guide them to be the next generation of engineers.
What is NSBE?
General Information & History
The National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) was founded by undergraduates with a faculty advisor at Purdue University in 1975. It was founded in response to the 80% drop out rate of Black freshmen in engineering programs in the 1960s. The club's goals were to improve the recruitment and retention of black engineering students. By the end of its first year, 32 schools and 48 students had joined NSBE.
There are 6 different regions and chapters of NSBE all over the U.S. Our chapter falls under Region 2, which includes most of the eastern chapters like North & South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, the "DMV", Delaware, and Pennsylvania. Virginia Tech falls under the "O-Zone", which is 1 out of the 5 zones within Region 2. We get the opportunity to network and meet other members and to get potential internship/job opportunities at our Fall Regional Conference and Zone Summits. The Annual Convention is also held every year in the spring, and is the largest NSBE convention with over thousands of students and professionals alike.
Today, NSBE has over 40,000 members, 2,000 elected leadership positions and 18 regional conferences all over the country. It now has 250+ collegiate student chapters, 80+ pre-college programs, and 70+ professional chapters. Its headquarters in currently in Alexandria, Virginia.