SWENext Design Lab: Page 2-3
Friday Night Social: Page 4
Keynote Speaker: Page 5-6
On February 17th and 18th, Societal SWE held the first annual WE Local Conference right here in downtown Pittsburgh at the Omni William Penn Hotel. WE Local is a smaller, regional version of the annual societal conference. This year, WE Local was only held in two cities throughout the country, so it was a great opportunity for members from the Pitt SWE section to attend and take part in the conference. This special edition newsletter shares some of our experiences at WE Local 2017!
What is Your Budget?: Page 7
Business Need for Speed: Page 8
Mentor Relationships:
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WE Local Highlights: Page 10-11
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Written by Kelsey Prem Being able to share our love of engineering and our pride of being a woman in the field is one of the favorite things of many SWE members. Part of the WE Local Conference was an outreach program for middle school aged students, called the SWENext Design Lab. SWENext is a program created by societal SWE with the hopes of getting middle and high school students interested in engineering. Many Pitt SWE members volunteered to act as role models at the Design Lab, leading tables of girls in engineering related activities and sharing their experiences of college. The event was broken into 2 main activities for the girls to complete, exposing them to different forms of engineering. The first activity exposed the girls to civil engineering and taught them the importance of perseverance. The goal of the activity was for the girls to work in teams to build a structure out of coffee stirrers and clay that could withstand a simulated earthquake. Many of the houses fell as soon as the girls started shaking, but they picked up the parts, redesigned and tried again. Eventually, after a lot of rebuilding and shaking, many of the teams had structures that held up against their earthquakes. The second activity the students were tasked with was building a contraption that could help amputees pick up things out of reach. They built these grabbers out of household materials such as rulers, rubber bands and paper cups. The activity exposed them to biomedical and mechanical engineering. While the girls were building volunteers were able to offer them tips and tricks to make their designs stronger, and at the end of the day, the girls shared their designs with their parents. Throughout the day, the college volunteers were able to share with the younger girls what it is like to be a woman pursuing engineering, and how important it is to follow your dreams and work hard. The outreach event exposed the girls to engineering and hopefully inspired many of them to join the STEM field.
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Written by Jackie Welsh After a successful first day of sessions, we celebrated the commencement of our conference with the Friday Night Social. Complete with carnival games and delicious food, this was a networking event as well as an overall good time. The night was kicked off with networking bingo, giving the collegiate and professionals alike a chance to get to know each other and establish some commonalities. Although it was easy to find someone who was the eldest or was a collegiate, the vegetarian category and never been on a plane were a little bit harder to find. After completing our cards and colleting our tickets, we feasted on Pittsburgh classics such as Primanti’s sandwiches and pierogis. The fries on a salad were a hit with every out-of-towner. While we ate, we listened to Audrey Russo, the President of Pittsburgh’s Technology Council tell her career and life story. Her story was one of inspiration and struggle as well as incredible success. She delivered with power and confidence. Although I found her to be amazing and a powerful woman, one takeaway I had was its hard to have it all, a strong family and a strong career, and it requires compromise. As a collegiate, this might not be applicable now, but will be for my future as I figure out what path to take. After listening to Audrey, we played many carnival games such as football and basketball, and this animatronic pig race, which was lots of fun. We finished up the night with a raffle for many baskets, which everyone enjoyed. The social was a success not only as a networking event but a fun night for everyone involved.
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Written by Kendra LaVallee My favorite part of the WE Local Conference was the keynote address by Elayne Arrington, an assistant professor of mathematics at Pitt and a pioneer for women and minority equality in STEM. Dr. Arrington is the first African-American woman to graduate from Pitt’s school of engineering, and one of the first in the country to earn a doctorate degree in mathematics. Her keynote speech addressed the importance of diversity and inclusion in engineering.
She started her talk by recounting her experiences as a black woman in the traditionally whitemale led field of mathematics and engineering. She recounted times that she was the most qualified candidate but was denied equal rights and opportunities, such as when she received a prestigious scholarship only to have it taken away and given to a white male. Dr. Arrington recalled times when she and other minorities were mistaken for maids and custodians rather than engineers in the workplace. In the second part of her speech, she stressed that in order to progress in society, the nation must be more inclusive by striving to bring STEM to young girls and ensuring equality in the workplace. She projected statistics showing that most girls are not encouraged to become engineers and scientists. She also spoke about communication strategies utilized to make sure that women are being respected in workplace meetings. Dr. Arrington closed with a quote by former president Barack Obama, which summarized the message of her keynote well: “We simply cannot, as a nation, expect to maintain our run of ingenuity and innovation-we cannot maintain that stream of new and different ideas- if we don’t broaden participation in STEM to all Americans, including women and girls and minorities” Dr. Arrington’s address moved and inspired the conference attendees to keep fighting for equality and inclusion in a field that women and minorities are traditionally suppressed in.
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Breakout Session:
Written by Becky Glucksman When accepting a job offer, you should always negotiate your salary! (Keep in mind that this may be difficult for internships or rotational programs in which there is a set salary.) The four steps for salary negotiation are as follows:
Know your value. -Before negotiating, you must do your research. You can use salary.com for this. Identify a target salary and benefits package.- Based on your qualifications, identify a target salary based on the typical salaries for the job you are applying for. Think about if your credentials are above average or below average and how they may compare to other applicants. When negotiating, you don’t want to say a number, rather you want to provide a range. Your target salary should be at the bottom of the range. Don’t stretch your range beyond 20%. Know your strategy. Practice.- Practice your pitch. You want to summarize your accomplishments, skills, and work experiences in a brief, persuasive manner. Try to keep this to 30 seconds or less. When thinking about your salary, you’ll also want to think about your budget. Calculate your take-home pay for your target salary at PaycheckCity.com. When creating a budget, you will want to use a 50/20/30 rule. This means that 50% of your monthly income should be used for essentials like rent, utilities, transportation, and groceries. 20% will be used for financial priorities like savings or paying off student loan debt and 30% will be used for lifestyle choices like eating out or paying for gym memberships. Some tools that can be used to track expenses are mint.com and learnvest.com.
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Breakout Session:
Written by Heather Amper In “Business Need for Speed: Building a Global Culture of Women Innovators”, Stefana Saxton with Black and Veatch discussed the importance of innovation within a company. She first started off by asking a question: “Are you innovative?” Most in the room shrugged, emitting a lack of confidence in their innovation skills. Stefana then began telling everyone that the number one reason why people are not innovative is because they do not think they are innovative. Stefana wanted everyone in the crowd to know that each individual is the main inhibitor to her own creativity and ideation. Stefana also discussed that innovation isn’t just creativity, but it also needs discipline. Innovation is not just ideas; it’s ideas put into practice. The main part of her presentation discussed how companies should always be trying to innovate, improve, and become more efficient. Stagnation is a company’s own poison. Stefana ended the session by having everyone break out into groups of 5 or 7. Each group had a golf ball and was instructed that the ball had to be given back and forth between each of the members three times. Once each group had their system, she told everyone try to complete it within three seconds. This is when everyone really had to put their thinking caps on and think outside of the box. Lots of different ideas circulated around the room to complete the seemingly impossible task. Several groups did accomplish the task within three seconds. Stefana ended the session with a final question, “Are you innovative?” To which everyone answered, “Yes!”
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Breakout Session:
Written by Laura Traczynski Dr. Tirah Ibironke presented a breakout presentation on mentorship relationships. By definition, a mentor provides guidance in personal and professional development. A mentor should be interested in helping someone to develop his/her potential. On the other hand, a mentee is a student who absorbs a mentor’s knowledge and has the ambition to put it into practice. Building this relationship will take time and patience, because mentoring is a process! The mentor and mentees should hold weekly meetings to get to know one another and share their experiences/knowledge. Why is mentoring beneficial? The mentee can learn for a wealth of experience. It also gives he/she the opportunity to express their thoughts and feelings in a one-on-one relationship. In addition, the mentor can also learn and grow from the mentee. Learning to be a strong mentor is a very powerful skill. A mentoring relationship will always be beneficial throughout any point of a career. Every mentorship relationship reaches the point where it must end. The mentee has gained everything he/she possible could have from the mentor. While the two will always have a relationship, their mentorship roles will end and they will move on to different points in their careers. Overall, a mentoring relationship can be extremely beneficial to grow as a student or professional.
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The Pitt SWE section received several awards at the closing dinner ceremony! 1st Place Globalization Event 1st Place Professional Development Event 1st Place Advocacy Event Collegiate Section Award: Gold Level Recognition
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