Up and coming, The Society of Women Engineers club is out to make a difference. Since starting the club last semester, students have been able to express their creativity and leadership within the chapter. President senior Elise Davis expresses what starting the club was like.
“I heard about SWE from Mr. Hagstrom in my engineering class last year. He told me MV used to have a SWE chapter until the old engineering teacher retired,” Davis said. “I decided to restart the club last semester and applied to get it approved by the board, and it did.”
Additionally, Davis explains what the club typically does at meetings, including guest speakers in the engineering field.
“We invite guest speakers who are women engineers to come in and tell us about their journey and also answer any of our questions. We can get job shadows with them, and so far this year we’ve had an electrical engineer and a NASA spacesuit engineer.”
The speakers informed the club about what it takes to be a woman engineer in a male-dominated field. Senior Elaina Fagen shares how speaking with the NASA spacesuit engineer impacted her.
“She was super great. She was incredibly nice and very informative. She was really passionate about her job and I love having guest speakers. She didn’t think she wanted to be in spacesuit engineering, but she knew she wanted to be at NASA, and she got put in there at rotation, and she fell in love with it so she gets to do something she enjoys every day, which is awesome.” Fagen said.
The Society of Women Engineers is an organization founded on the bases of advocating for women in STEM. The organization has been around since 1950 and operates under the motto of “ASPIRE, ADVANCE, ACHIEVE”. Club sponsor and engineering teacher Mr. Hagstrom describes how the club is beneficial to students.
“Being that my classes are 90% or so male, it gives the female representation a space to work together with like minded career goals. The SWENext club is student driven giving them the tools and resources they want to explore making a more personalized engineering experience.” Hagstrom said.
