Help FTC @ UCF Attend the 2022 STC Summit

Hello! My name is John Clement, and I'm the current president of the Future Technical Communicators club at the University of Central Florida. Our club's goal is to help our members prepare for and get careers after graduation in the field of technical communication. Individuals in this field work as writers, editors, web and graphic designers, and more.

 

One of our club's most ambitious and exciting ventures is to gather a group of students to attend the STC Technical Communication Summit. This conference is hosted by the Society for Technical Communication (STC), the largest technical communication organization in the world. The STC Summit brings together like-minded individuals from around the globe to grow in their knowledge of the technical communication field. This year's conference takes place from Sunday, May 15 to Wednesday, May 18 in Rosemont, Illinois. For the past two years, our group has had hopes of attending this trip but experienced roadblocks; the coronavirus pandemic shifted the conference to a virtual capacity and also interfered with our ability to get funding from our university. However, this year it will be in person again, and the outlook for funding the trip is brighter. Thus, we are spearheading this initiative once again.

 

Over the past few months, the FTC leadership team has been working hard to gather a committed group of students to attend the conference. Each student plans to volunteer at the Summit to offset the registration cost, but additional help will still be needed. We recently submitted a funding request to our university to go toward the trip. Fortunately, our funding request was approved, and we received $2,000 of funding for it. This is a significant milestone and further allows this trip be a possibility. However, it only puts our group two-thirds of the way to total funding; between four days of hotel costs and seven round-trip tickets, the total cost of the trip comes to approximately $3,000.

 

Accordingly, we have set up this fundraiser to help offset the remaining charges. Our hope and goal are to get enough funding to allow all our student attendees to go on the trip for free. This will ensure that we do not experience any financial roadblocks and can add a significant experience to our educational and professional journeys.

 

Past members of our club who have attended the Summit found it to be a life-changing experience that connected them to a fantastic community and prepared them for successful careers in technical communication. We hope to make that same experience a reality for our students this year as we pursue full funding for the trip. Please consider donating to our fundraiser and spreading the word. We appreciate any and all contributions.

 

You can learn more about our club by visiting our website, reading this brief article on our club history, and following our social media and more.

 

Thank you,

 

John Clement

President, Future Technical Communicators club at UCF