Last week was another SWEek (Society of Women Engineers Week) because we had a couple pretty big events between last Sunday (9/18) and this Saturday (9/24). Cue the SWE puns.
We kicked it off with a massive general interest meeting (GIM) on Sunday where any people interested in joining the group could come and learn more about how to get involved. Every year it is called “SWEets with SWE” and unsurprisingly we have plenty of desserts. SWE is on an upward trend and it keeps growing every year. This year, 80 people showed up to the GIM!
Tuesday night was an unofficial SWE event when we painted the cannon to advertise an event planned for Thursday. It was a beautiful night and we just hung out and practiced doing “art” in a sense.
Maybe you caught the resemblance, or maybe not, but the cannon was supposed to look like a burrito (burr-SWE-to) to celebrate our fundraiser at Chipotle. We are fully funding 20 girls to go to the national conference in Philadelphia this year, which is more than ever before.
On Wednesday, one of the grad students held the first ever Tufts grad student SWE meeting, which was very well attended and a great chance for our chapter to get even stronger. It’s exciting for undergrad SWE because we will start a mentorship program at some point with them.
These events were very tame compared to Saturday, when Tufts hosted the Region F Leadership Summit. About 100 people came to Tufts from all over New England and New York. The president of the national chapter of SWE gave the opening keynote address, and the treasurer of our section, who also happens to be the region collegiate representative, did a fantastic job organizing the event.
I am a strong supporter of SWE, mostly because it provides a really great community environment. The pre-professional aspect is a great resource, but I have benefitted most by getting to know so many truly spectacular people through the group. In order to make a community it is critical to continually be engaged through events, and be very inclusive to everyone. SWE has been working hard at that and I think it is why the group has taken off recently. Go Jumbos!