May Newsletter 2018

May 2018

THANKS FOR A SWEET YEAR Thank you to everyone’s dedication to SWE this year. It has been

an awesome journey and we can’t wait for another year of success. Please read this edition to learn about our adventure to WELocal in Portland and the other final events of the year. For our last social event of the year we went to Color Me Mine on Sunday, April 15th. We got to paint your own plate, mug, bowl, or trinket for free with our favorite women engineering ladies. It was an awesome way to paint, socialize, and have fun.

Additionally, we are so proud of the SWE women who shined at the Blue Star Awards this year: Jennifer Welton (Advisor of the Year), Dinnerview (Best Collaborative Program), Dana Emswiler (Freshman of the Year), Farah Khan (Star of Distinction).

HIGH SCHOOL ENGINEERING DAY By: Sydney WInner

On March 24th, 2018, the University of Pittsburgh Society of Women Engineers

hosted 46 male and female high school students on Pitt’s campus. The theme of the event was helping high school students understand engineering and the different engineering majors. The students were welcomed to a day of student panelists, a keynote presenter, and a multitude of lab tours. The student panel was made up of Pitt SWE members from each of the different engineering disciplines at Pitt. The purpose of the panel was to introduce the high schoolers to the different types of engineering and give them a space to ask questions about what they might be interested in studying based on their interests. The high school students were shy at first, but they ended up greatly utilizing the panel and asking wonderful questions about engineering! After the panel concluded we introduced our keynote speaker for the day, Dr. Katherine Hornbostel. Dr. Hornbostel gave a fantastic keynote outlining her journey through academia and even explaining her doctoral thesis in a fun and easy to understand way for the high school students. The high schoolers then took a break for lunch before proceeding to two separate lab tours. One of the lab tours was focused on Materials Science Engineering and Mechanical Engineering. The other lab tour was focused on Computer, Electrical, and Aerospace Engineering. After the tours the high schoolers returned for post event surveys before leaving for the day. The survey results show that the event was generally a success! Students showed significantly increased understanding in both what engineering is and in what the individual engineering majors are. We were very pleased with the results of this spring’s high school event and look forward to hosting another event in the fall of 2018.

ELEMENTARY ENGINEERING EXTRAVAGANZA By: Jessica Sorrick

Elementary Engineering Extravaganza was held on Saturday, March

31st in Benedum Hall. There were about 60 elementary students accompanied by their parents that attended the fun-filled day of engineering activities! To start the day, there was a STEM Expo, where different engineering clubs from the University of Pittsburgh came to do STEM related activities with the children and their parents. Then, the students split up into groups to participate in activities relating to different engineering disciplines. For chemical engineering, the students learned about chemical reactions and made bouncy balls. For aerospace engineering, the students did an activity called Lunar Lander where they made a parachute to safely transport precious cargo to the ground. For electrical engineering, the students learned about circuits and played games with Makey Makey. Lastly, for civil engineering, the students competed to see who could build the tallest and sturdiest tower out of newspapers. Within each of these activities, the students learned the importance of the design process, working in a team, and specifics about each engineering discipline.

While the students were participating in these activities, the parents participated in a program designed to teach them more about engineering as well. They attended a presentation on how to get their child interested in engineering, a panel with students and professional engineers, and participated in a hands-on engineering activity.

OUTREACH CORNER

ETIQUETTE DINNER By: Casey Kinol

Thank you to everyone who attended the SWE

etiquette dinner on March 20th, especially to those who volunteered to help the night run so smoothly. We had a wonderful guest speaker from CDPA, Alyson Kavalukas, who covered proper dinner etiquette including what to wear, order, and how to act when in a professional dinner setting. Afterwards our panel of four professionals answered questions and discussed their own firsthand experiences when out to dinner for different interviews and work events. Finally, we wrapped up with food and plenty of time to network. Overall the night was a success and a great opportunity for professional development and learning dinner etiquette.

BREAKFAST WITH TRACEY TRAVIS On Thursday 3/22, 19 of our top point earners

attended an exclusive breakfast and talk at the university club with distinguished Pitt IE alum and Executive Vice President and CFO of EstÊe Lauder, Tracey Travis. Tracey told us the story of how she came to be in the position she’s in now, as well as answering our questions on the switch from engineering to management, work-life balance, and being a woman in engineering and business.

WELOCAL PORTLAND KEEP PORTLAND SWEIRD

By: Jackie Welsh

During our free time from the conference, we

bummed around Portland trying to figure out what made the city weird. After landing on Thursday, we spent the day exploring the Portland Art Museum and Powell’s Bookstore, the largest bookstore in America. Spanning one city block and three floors, Powell’s was an impressive collection of books, art, and souvenirs.

With areas such as the rare book room, one could spend all day exploring what this store had to offer. The art museum featured a visiting exhibit from the stop-motion animator Laika, the artistic vision behind Caroline, Kudo, Paranorman, and The Box Trolls. It was cool to see the complex process that went into each character creation and the detail involved in each scene. We then got dinner at Punch Bowl Social, an eccentric arcade themed restaurant.

After the conference on Friday we went to 2nd Street Records and the Pine Street Market where we had Salt and Straw ice cream, a local favorite. We then wrapped up our exploring with the Saturday Market and the Chinese Gardens on Saturday. We got to explore local vendors and goofy street art at the market and try our hand at rainy Tai Chi in the garden. Although we were not the best at finding our zen, we had a blast “bringing down the heavens”. From the cooky Tai Chi instructor, to the funky soda flavors, Portland did not disappoint in its unusual taste, and your loyal SWE officers did their part to “keep Portland sweird”.

WAKE UP, WELOCAL: TRADE SECRETS OF AN ASPIRING WONDER WOMAN

By: Kaleigh Smith

On Friday, April 6th, April Mills kicked off the We Local Portland

conference with a keynote titled “Trade Secrets of an Aspiring Wonder Woman.”

April shared five of her secrets for becoming better, faster, stronger, and more authentic. First secret: go first. April spent fourteen years in the US Navy, mostly serving in a management role. She tried to “drive change” by bossing people around and soon realized that would not work out. Instead, she decided to “drive change” by showing them the way and creating a space for others to thrive.

Next, don’t give up. April founded, formed, and is running Bremerton Beyond Accessible Playground, a park and playground for people of all abilities.

By setting a concrete goal of how much money to raise and by what date, she was able to achieve that goal. She raised $550,000 to expand and remodel a 9,000-square-foot playground, which in turn multiplied the usage seven-fold.

This took a few years but April insists, “don’t give up, time is relative.”

Third, set your own limits. “How big can you make them?” April urged us to challenge assumptions and set our own boundaries. For example, April wrote her own book while her son was in the hospital for two weeks. If she didn’t see herself as an author, she wasn’t an author. It was not until circumstances arose that she decided to see herself as an author, breaking any previous self-enforced limits, and was able to write the book she always dreamed of.

Next, be you. “People don’t need an ideal image, people need you.” Ignore conflicting signals and chart your own course. We spend too much time comparing ourselves to everyone else. April reminds us, “you weren’t meant to be anyone else.”

April’s last trade secret for an aspiring wonder woman is keep driving, because “every summit gives you a better view of the next heights.” A change agent’s motto sounds like “I will do what I can, with what I have, where I am.” Keep driving for the part of life that makes you happy. April finishes her trade secrets with “your next adventure may be the best one yet.”

If I was not aspiring to be a wonder woman before, I am now thanks to April’s trade secrets!

WORKING WITH YOUR HOBBIES By: Alexandra Lee

Everyone knows that having hobbies outside of your

work is important, but it sometimes goes unknown how much you can incorporate those hobbies into your working life. In the breakout session panel, “Work to Live: Leverage Your Hobbies & Fuel Your Career”, we learned from the points of view of three women, Cary, Rachel, and Melissa, how hobbies can be incorporated into the work life balance and how you can use them to get ahead in your career.

Cary learned to sail at a young age and currently owns and lives on a large sailboat. She’s used her hobby of sailing to better understand the technicalities of her job in commercial aircraft product development at Boeing, by making connections between the things she does for boat maintenance to requirements for plane design and maintenance. She also used her hobby to make a good impression on Boeing managers who flew in a day early for a conference, by offering to take them out sailing. By the next morning in her business meeting, the managers already knew, liked, and respected her after having spent the night before getting to know her through her hobby.

Rachel had many outdoor hobbies which she leveraged during her job searching period. She was able to emphasize her love of snowboarding to gain her a job as a design engineer at Burton Snowboards, her love of biking to get an engineering job in the bike industry, and her overall love of the outdoors and running to obtain the job of Senior Footwear Innovation Engineer at Columbia Sportswear.

Melissa is an avid mountain climber. She talked about the importance of working with your employer to create a flexible schedule that will allow you to pursue your hobbies. While it may not work for everyone in every industry, Melissa’s Boeing employers know her to occasionally ask for a day off in order to go take a climbing trip. She emphasized to us that as long as you have established yourself to be a good worker and present to your employers how you will make up the hours and get all of your work done, they should be open to the idea of you occasionally taking a day to pursue your hobby. She also mentioned how having time to do something you love can be energizing, allowing you to return to work refreshed and ready to push forward with your projects.

An important message all the panelists agreed upon is that you should never be afraid to pursue your hobbies and it’s a lot easier to intermix your hobbies into your career than you may realize.

By: Kelsey Prem

SIX KEYS TO BEING CEO

Dorota Shortell, CEO of Simplexity, a Megatronics leader on the West Coast spoke as a keynote at

the WELocal Portland conference. She shared what she believed to be the key skills one must have to become a successful CEO. These keys included Culture, People, Negotiation, Financing, Vision and Execution. Culture is creating an atmosphere at the company that reflects your core values, while people is hiring the individuals who will seamlessly fit into the culture. Negotiation and financing work hand in hand, trying to find the best path for your company and getting the best deals. Vision is having a thought of where you want the company to go, and execution is creating a specific plan on how to get there. Although these all seem to be soft skills, something that engineering students often are not trained in while in school, she shared how her background in engineering allowed her to gain these skills. It was mainly personal experience while working her way to the top that made it possible for her to take on the role of CEO and succeed in taking her company to new heights. Dorota also shared that in order to stand out and be offered the position of CEO you must choose 2 or 3 of the skills to excel at rather than being decent in all 6, because being decent in all 6 just makes you an average employee. Instead we must stand out in a few sections, because you can learn to get by in the rest once you get the job.

DESIGNING ACCESSIBLE PROJECTS IN THE DIGITAL ERA

By: Joy Huang

“Designing Accessible Projects in the Digital Era” was a breakout session about building more

holistic solutions in the modern age that are inclusive of all people. Accessibility is defined as introducing and promoting qualities that make an experience open to all. Three inclusive design principles that can be used to increase accessibility are (1) recognizing exclusion, (2) learning from diversity, and (3) solving for one, extending to many. Exclusion is often based on disabilities that a person has; but disability in this day and age extend beyond permanent features of individuals and should be regarded as a context-dependent feature that everyone faces throughout changing situations. Similarly, learning from diversity no longer only refers to understanding the isolated needs of disabled people but often includes exploring communication “mismatches” between people whose individual capabilities are non-complementary and may impede communication and interaction. Finally, the last principle is really what helps to broaden the scope of solutions to improve as many lives as possible by applying accessibility solutions to new situations outside of what the solution was initially designed for. While these are some of the principles that Microsoft embraces in the development of their software and hardware,it was an interesting perspective of human factors design that should be adopted among other digital industries.

A GUIDE TO NETWORKING FOR INTROVERTS By: Farah Khan

Marta Wicke who is a Supply Chain Leader and Project Manager at

the Clorox Companies and identifies as an INTJ (MBTI Personality) ambivert.

She provided our breakout session group with some insight towards the often intimidating landscape that we know as networking. In this day and age, using your network can be vital in finding new opportunities or even starting a new career. For introverts, who are drained by social interaction, it can be a challenge to remain energetic and personable at a networking event. Furthermore, making connections in the workplace can be 60% of your job! We often spend most of our work day building relationships with our colleagues through different forms of interaction. For example, we learn about someone’s weekend in the breakroom when we get coffee. We learn about people’s plans and goals at a business meeting. Here are Marta Wicke’s Insider Tips for Networking as an Introvert: 1. Regroup and Decompress

As we discussed, introverts are drained by social interaction and often need alone time to re-energize. During a networking event, find a few moments to step away in order to regroup and decompress. This exercise could be as simple as going to the wash room or getting another drink.

2. Quality versus Quantity

Introverts are often much better at one-on-one interactions versus group settings. Use individual conversations to build your network.

3. Use your “Introvert Strengths”!

Introvert strengths include powerful listening and observing ability, keen preparation, and loyalty. Being a good listener is a powerful skill. Adept listeners are often better at understanding the dynamics of certain relationships and can leverage that understanding to improve individual interactions. Furthermore, consider preparing for your conversation during your moments of decompression. Go over what you spoke about, and consider some questions you could ask to further develop the discussion.

Finally, introvert loyalty is important in maintaining relationship because it results in cultivated relationships where both parties touch back with each other.

4. Be an engaging listener.

Marta also offered some tips for being an engaged listener: o Observe: Read the room and figure out who the power players are. Engage with those people. o Be Curious: Use phrases like “Tell me more about . . .” and ask open-ended questions like “What are the challenges in your department?” and “What excites you about this business?” o Paraphrase: Reflect back what you heard to your conversation partner. Use phrases like “What I’m hearing is. . .” and capitalize on the opportunity to capture the person’s problem and offer a solution. o Add Value: Offer suggestions or observations. o Build Trust: Be generous, vulnerable and accountable.

5. Prepare!

Check out LinkedIn for mutual interests or connections.

Come with key observations and prepared questions or consider connecting in advance.

ENGINEER YOUR MOST POWERFUL SELF

By: Eryn McCormick

Following the initial keynote speaker on Friday, I attended a breakout session called “Engineer Your

Most Powerful Self” presented by Tina Whiteside. She emphasized the need to break out of one’s comfort zone to become well-rounded and knowledgeable in a wide variety of topics. To begin, you need to have an idea of what you want to accomplish, determine what is holding you back, let go of what you do not need, and construct a plan to further execute. For myself, I wanted to commit to studying abroad and learning more about another culture. Tina then asked us to voice our ideas to three strangers. Stating a goal to another individual will then encourage both individuals to hold one another accountable.

Then, I needed to make two plans – one long-term and one short-term. For short-term, I need to research potential study abroad opportunities Pitt offers; while long-term I need to plan how I will fund the trip and how the credits gained will benefit me in graduating. This session also provided time for women to be vocal about their experiences and share those ideas with women from across the United States.

I was encouraged to expand my horizons and try new opportunities that will not only benefit my time at Pitt, but make me a more well-rounded engineer.

FAILING FORWARD

By: Laura Traczynski

Failing at work or school can feel devastating, but if you’re not failing, you aren’t growing and learning

from your experiences. The speaker of this session, Allison Goodman, is a computer and electrical engineer that has learned to embrace her failures and use them as life lessons in her career. How a person responds to failures is the difference between an average engineer and an achiever. It is best to move from constantly fearing and avoiding these experiences to expecting them. You should acknowledge your emotional response, accept responsibility for your actions, and work out the possible solutions to the problem. As a leader, if you are willing to admit your mistakes to your team, you will seem authentic and become more well-liked. At work or an organization, people should promote a culture that supports failure. Everyone is human, and mistakes are inevitable; however, you can set yourself apart by accepting your failures and taking action to move on from them.