PittSWE Newsletter - January 2015

VOLUME 5

ISSUE NO. 5

PITT SWE

JANUARY, 2015

THE UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH, SOCIETY OF WOMEN ENGINEERS

Women In STEM Conference

By Casey Kinol On Saturday, January 17, Pitt SWE hosted our first Women in STEM Conference. This conference was open to any Pitt student interested in the STEM fields. It included three main speakers as well as four different breakout sessions, where attendees could chose a topic of interest. The conference opened with an inspiration speech graciously given

by Senior Vice Chancellor Kathy Humphrey. Her main message was to find your mission in life and to not let go of that goal. This was a great start to the conference. Then, there were breakout sessions, including a Sexual Harassment workshop and an Innovation and Entrepreneurship Information session. In the Sexual Harassment workshop, we learned a lot about the common occurrence of sexual harassment situations on campuses as well as in the work place

and how to deal with various situations. The Innovations and Entrepreneurship session was all about how we have the power to be creative and lead our own businesses. Our keynote speaker, Kathleen Buse gave a powerful speech about the underrepresentation of women in STEM professions. She gave us a lot of encouragement that we, as women, can and should pursue a career in STEM. SWE Officer Training was a valuable breakout session in which we learned how we, as officers, can make SWE the

best that it can be. In ‘Do’s and Don’ts of Workplace Etiquette’ we learned all about proper behavior in professional situations. Our final speaker, Miss Harris County and NASA Co-op, Christina Dillon gave us an encouraging student perspective presentation about pursuing a STEM degree and a STEM future. Overall, this conference was a very valuable experience where we not only learned about STEM careers but also gained encouragement to never give up on this journey.

Highlights: In this Issue ALSO INCLUDED

UPCOMING EVENTS: PAGE 2

RIDDLE: PAGE 2

WOMEN IN STEM CONFERENCE US STEEL TEAM BUILDING WORKSHOP PAGE 2

OFFICER OF THE MONTH: PAGE 3

BECCA’S PERSPECTIVE PAGE 3

PAGE 1

US Steel Team Building Workshop NEXT MONTH Coffee Hour: 2/3 GBM: 2/4 Region G Conference: 2/6-8 Study Session: 2/7 Post Grad Event: 2/9 Promoting STEM: 2/12 Mentor Ice Skating: 2/15 Dinnerview: 2/16 Co-Op Fair: 2/17 Career Fair: 2/18

US Steel came to Forbes Hall on January 12th to host a team building workshop. All of us learned about how we each have a different and unique personality; however, there are commonalities that we share. The fact that we all have different types of personalities gives us all important qualities that work together

Coffee Hour: 2/19 HSED: 2/20 Elementary Engineering Extravaganza: 2/21

If you know the answer to this riddle email Pitt SWE to get a cool prize!

Also a special thanks to Geena Petrone for crowdfunding 117% of our goal! This money will allow SWE to continue to help our community with more outreach programs.

as a part of a well functioning team. True Colors, the main theme of the workshop, is a personality test similar to Meyers Briggs that is an attempt to identify various personality styles and label them with colors. All of the students first guessed which personality they saw most fit for themselves. We then took a quiz to see which color dominated our personality: orange, green, blue, or gold. Once everyone determined which color they were, we broke up into teams, by color, to discuss our strengths, weaknesses, values, stressors, etc.

We then presented this information to the other groups. The main goal of this session was to gain an understanding of other personality styles and discover certain traits about oneself. This workshop aided in team building because understanding qualities of different types of people decreases conflict and enhances relationships and communication.Â

RIDDLE A windowless room contains three identical light fixtures, each containing an identical light bulb or light globe.

Each light is connected to one of three switches outside of the room.

Each bulb is switched off at present. You are outside the room, and the door is closed. You have one , and only one, opportunity to flip any of the external switches.

After this, you can go into the room and look at the lights, but you may not touch the switches again. How can you tell which switch goes to which light?

Women In STEM Conference

By Becca Lasky On Saturday January 17th, SWE hosted the Women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) Conference. This event was open to any Pitt student, particularly women in a STEM field to come and focus for a day on the challenges women face in the STEM career path. The day began with an amazing Dr. Humphrey, previously Dean Humphrey, lesson. Her goal is for each of us to find our “Mission” and go and do it. Life will throw in so many different challenges and obstacles or even opportunities that we can’t say no to that will ultimately distract us from the end goal. Her words were such an inspiring start to our day.

After Dr. Humphrey’s speech there were several breakout sessions we could attend. I personally attended the “Sexual Harassment” workshop.

This topic is so important for women due to the very startling statistic of women sexually harassed in the work force and in day to day life. We learned about the different kinds of sexual harassment and certain actions to take should we find ourselves in that position.

During lunch another inspiring woman spoke to us. Dr. Kathleen Buse co-founded Advancing Women in STEM* and is the faculty

director of the Leadership lab for Women in STEM. Dr. Buse worked in industry for a full career while proving the idea that women can’t have a full family life if they work completely false. She wants to encourage every single one of us to stick with our chosen STEM field and continue to represent women in a field where a staggering amount of women leave after about 18 years. She wants us to know we can have a family and lead a full life, while pursuing the field we are about to enter.

After lunch we went to our last two breakout sessions. I attended a “SWE Officer Training”. During this training the officers of Pitt SWE’s section learned more about our responsibilities and the region of SWE we’re in.

For the last session I attended the “K-12 Outreach.” This session is especially important for Pitt SWE’s section due to the amount of outreach work we do. We learned more about ways to encourage the next generation of girls and boys to pursue the STEM field. We learned different tactics for different ages and more way to engage the students in our activities.

Our last keynote speaker was a contestant for Miss Texas running on a STEM platform. Christina Dillon, current Miss Harris County 2015, is such an inspiration to women of all ages and especially our age. She is a coop and NASA and a senior mechanical engineering student at the University of Houston. She is also a sister of Phi Sigma Rho engineering sorority. She is an inspiration because she didn’t choose between engineering and other loves. For years she studied and taught dance and she wanted to pursue it.

Although she fell into the pageant world, she wants to use this opportunity to speak to women across the country about pursuing whatever it is they want to do while not compromising any of their other loves.

She is a living example of how this is possible. She seems to do it all and do it all well. It was so beneficial for us to hear some of these things from a fellow student, someone who has been where we are very recently, reminding us to say no to anyone who tells us we have to choose. We don’t have to choose. We are women in STEM and we can accomplish anything we want to if we set our mind to it.

OFFICER OF THE MONTH: GEENA PETRONE Geena was chosen for working hard on Crowdfunding and raising 117% of our goal, for SWE. Geena has also accepted the

Class: Sophomore Major: Industrial Engineer

ing

Position: Crowdfunding/S

ervice

Activities/Clubs: SW MAC Tutoring

position of Service Chair.

Thank you!

E and