PittSWE Newsletter - February 2014

PITT SWE

Volume 2, Issue 4

February 2014

Night with Northrop Professional Written By: Christine Bontempi Last December, a University Relations employee from Northrop Grumman met with the exec board members of SWE, NSBE, and SHPE to discuss how their company can have a better presence on campus and recruit Pitt students. We all collaborated with help from Career Services to create the Night with Northrop event on February 18th.

This event was open to anyone at the University of Pittsburgh or Carnegie Mellon University with backgrounds in computer engineering, computer science, mechanical engineering, or industrial engineering as Northrop is a leading global security company which works closely with the government.

The night started off with a mix and mingle with the Northrop Grumman employees in attendance, and the students had to fill out trivia questions by talking with them. The next section of the night was devoted to a question and answer session with the employees in attendance. The employees ranged from recent Pitt graduates, to vice presidents and managers from the different sectors, which provided students a rare opportunity to network with senior executives at a large company. Finally, the night wrapped up with more networking. Northrop was actively looking for candidates to interview at this event and at the career fair.

Edited by: Christine Bontempi

SWE Career Services National News Written By: Kylie Zeis A helpful tool that national SWE provides for its members is the Career Center located at careers.swe.org. This area is designed for anyone who is seeking a job, so it is ideal for college students who will need employment.

Members can post their resumes and search for jobs, which employers and recruiters from all over are able to post. The employers are able to conduct a targeted resume search, which will allow them to contact you if you have the criteria that they are looking for. This area of SWE could be very useful if you take advantage of the great opportunity presented to you! Try it out!

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

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Night with Northrop SWE Career Services Siemens Company Visit Middle School Engineering Day Region G Conference Diversity Dinnerview Welcome New Officers

Siemens Company Visit

Middle School Engineering Day

Professional Written By: Christine Bontempi

Outreach Written By: Kim Daloise

On February 6th, a Human Resources representative from Siemens, a large, international electronics company, presented about the many opportunities available at Siemens. He discussed the different sectors and locations that interns or full-time employees could work. He attended the career fair several weeks later to hire students for these positions.

On February 22, 2014, the University of Pittsburgh Society for Women Engineers hosted the 4th Annual Middle School Engineering Day! Middle School Engineering Day (MSED) provides middle school students from the Pittsburgh area with the opportunity to learn more about what engineering means and potential careers in engineering through multiple hands-on activities. These activities incorporate teamwork, problem solving, and creativity while engaging the students’ thinking in math and science.

Since the career fair was coming up, he decided to talk about interview and resume tips. He talked about many of the points that members from career services have brought up in the past, but he also gave new pointers as he does make hiring decisions for this large international company. He pointed out things such as not arriving more than 5-10 minutes early for your interview as it can actually inconvenience a manager or other busy employee. Also, if alcohol is served and the prospective employee is of legal age, be sure to have as few drinks as possible because hiring decisions have been made based on how candidates handle themselves in those situations. This was an excellent event to learn more about opportunities at Siemens, while gaining tips in preparation for the career fair and for the interview process!

Middle School Engineering Day

The students rotated through a total of four activities that highlighted civil engineering, chemical/environmental engineering, bioengineering, and mechanical engineering.

In the civil engineering activity, students were required to try to build the tallest tower that could withstand wind from a fan or forces from a tennis ball. This taught the students the different factors that would need to be considered when civil engineers create building plans. The chemical/environmental engineering activity allowed students to design a sanitary landfill that would not leak, therefore avoiding harmful chemicals from contaminating groundwater supplies. Next, during the bioengineering activity, the possibility of working with DNA to investigate genetic disorders was shown by allowing the students to build their own DNA molecules out of gummy bears and toothpicks.

Finally, the mechanical engineering activity had students design and build a wind-powered car out of lifesavers, straws, paper, and plastic cups. This allowed students to experiment and determine which “wind-catcher” would allow their car to travel the farthest.

Of the 109 students that were in attendance on February 22nd, 94% of the students said

that they learned more about engineering at our activity and many said that they were more interested in a career in engineering after attending. Therefore, overall MSED was a great success in getting younger children interested in not only math and science, but more specifically, engineering.

friend. During the conference, information about SWE was acquired and information about progressing as a student/engineer was also gathered. The next Region G Annual Conference will be held at West Virginia University, so be sure to think about attending next year!

Diversity Dinnerview Wind-Catcher activity at MSED

Region G Conference Region G News Written By: Kylie Zeis Region G just held their annual conference at Ohio State University on February 21st through the 23rd. The main conference events took place on Saturday, the 22nd. There were many sessions to attend, which were pertinent to college students. Some informative sessions were public speaking, studying abroad as an engineer, SWE after graduation, LinkedIn, collegiate leadership coaching module, and many more. There was also a career fair, where it was possible to network with companies. During the banquet in the evening, Dr. Umit Ozkan, a professor at Ohio State, spoke wise words about playing many roles in life. It is just as important to be a great engineer as it is to be a great daughter or

Professional Written By: Sarah Pachesky On February 19th, 2014, Pitt SWE participated in hosting the 3rd annual Diversity Dinnerview, a networking event jointly hosted by the Society of Women Engineers, the National Society of Black Engineers and the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers.

Dinnerview gives students an opportunity to interact with company recruiters in a lowpressure environment and gives some of our younger members the chance to become more comfortable with networking. The event started with a presentation from one of our Platinum sponsors, Bechtel Plant Machinery Inc., about networking and etiquette during dinner. Afterwards, dinner commenced, where 5-6 students sat at a table with 2-3 representatives from different companies.

Conversations centered around company culture, work-life balance, life after college, internships, full-time jobs and other topics of interest to students. After dinner, we had

another presentation from our Platinum Sponsor KeyBanc Capital Markets about the interview process and how to land a job offer.

The group then split in half – half stayed for a question and answer panel with our Gold Sponsors, and the other half moved to mock interviews with recruiters. Students were able to choose their top three companies they wanted to interview with. After the 20 minute mock interview session, the students switched to the panel and vice-versa. After both sessions, all students rejoined for a closing presentation by the final Platinum Sponsor, Verizon Communications, about following up after an interview. Overall, Diversity Dinnerview went very well, with over 80 students and 20 companies attending. Pitt SWE would like to thank our sponsors for supporting Diversity Dinnerview: Bechtel Plant Machinery KeyBanc Capital Markets Verizon Communications BASF Eaton Exxon Mobil Bayer

Upcoming Events March 4- Yoga Night March 20-Bechtel/Bettis Company Visit March 22- Elementary Engineering Extravaganza March 28-SWEevening

Pitt SWE Officers President – Christina O’Donnell Vice President – Christine Bontempi Secretary – Sarah Pachesky Treasurer – Dhanu Thiyagarajan

Welcome New Officers!

Pitt Chapter News Written By: Christina O’Donnell We recently had our elections for the officers of the 2014-2015 school year! We know this is a bit early in the semester to think about next year, but we start our transition program at the beginning of March. During our transition program, we plan to have workshops where the current and incoming officers meet and discuss their biggest challenges and concerns about the position. We also encourage shadowing so the incoming officers can actually see what is being done before they take on that role. So congratulations to the new officers! We will have you well prepared for next year!

President: Dhanu Thiyagarajan Vice President: Erica Stevens Secretary: Kylie Zeis Treasurer: Kim Daloise Corporate Relations: Emma McBride & Becky Glucksman Service: Catherine McElhining Outreach: Lisa Cross Mentorship: Michelle Banas Fundraising: Rachel Dunn Meeting Coordinator: Becca Lasky Webmaster: Nina Obwald Publicity: Tara Manesh Special Events: Meghan Scott

SWE RIDDLE Pitt SWE would like to challenge you to a riddle! The first University of Pittsburgh student to email PittSWE@gmail.com with the correct answer will receive a $10 dollar gift certificate as a reward.

How can you add eight 8's to get the number 1,000? (only use addition)