A few weeks ago, I was asked by one of my professors if I was interested in going and recruiting some friends to go speak at a high school in Clark, New Jersey and talk about women in engineering as part of a "Non-Traditional Career Day" that was being hosted by that school's guidance department. I jumped at the chance to speak to young high school women and talk to them about why engineering is so great!
This morning, me and three friends went to speak on behalf of female engineers (and for Stevens of course!). I asked people who had very different majors with different experiences under their belt in their respective field. All of the women have distinguished themselves as leaders on campus through their involvement.
Here's the breakdown of who went and their majors:
Me - Mechanical Engineering
Lauren - Biomedical Engineering
Sarah - Civil Engineering
Mallory - Naval Engineering
So, there we were... 4 college students talking to 4 groups of freshman and sophomore high school students (groups of approximately 25). We talked to them about a plethora of different topics: who we were, what we do on campus, what our research and work experience has been, why we chose engineering, what is engineering, what engineers do, and why they should consider it as a future career if it plays to their strengths.
I hope the students got something out of our discussion with them. I'm hoping that we sparked an interested in some of those young women so they will consider it in their future so that female engineers will no longer be a "non-traditional" career!
