Over 50 admitted and current female engineering students learned about career pathways, job negotiation, work-life balance and supporting each other during the 6th annual Women Excelling in Engineering (WE2) event March 25.
Hosted by the Batten College of Engineering and Technology, WE2 is an opportunity for female engineering students to meet and learn from successful female engineers, peers, alumni and industry leaders.
"This event is important because it's not just reaching out to young girls, but also girls already in engineering - people who are also going through this and who want to support you in your engineering career," said Connie Collier, a senior majoring in mechanical engineering.
According to the Society of Women Engineers, in 2020 only 24.2% of U.S. undergraduate engineering students were female.
Sponsorship was provided by The GBS Group and supporting student organizations, the Society of Women Engineers and Phi Sigma Rho.
Kenneth Fridley, dean of the Batten College, opened the event with a short history lesson on Lillian Gilbreth - the first woman inducted into the National Academy of Engineering, the "mother" of ergonomics and actual mother of 12 children as featured in the book, "Cheaper by the Dozen." "She changed our profession, changed our society and changed our country," he said.
Students then attended one of two concurrent panel discussions.
The "Managing your Undergraduate Journey," panel featured current ODU students. Topics included internships, managing course schedules and staying motivated.
The second panel, "Pathways After Graduation," provided a recent graduate and early career engineer perspective. Panelists discussed self-marketing, work-life balance and the art of job negotiation.
Abbie Dean, '20 (CEE) project manager and design engineer at VDOT's Location and Design Department - Hampton Roads District, talked about her role in the installation of a new transportation safety feature on the Eastern Shore.
"As the designer on the project and the project manager, being able to speak one-on-one with people and show them although it's not something they are used to - it is going to be a safety mechanism and there's going to be a reduction of crashes," she said. "Being able to educate people is really helpful and fulfilling."
Moderator Karina Arcaute, director of the Batten College's First Year Engineering Programs, made a point about the importance of language. "I think the narrative has to be changed," she said. "Engineering is not a male-dominated industry, it is a male-majority industry." "You don't let anyone dominate you."
The main panel, "Building a Successful Engineering Career," featured Karen Bibb, an aerospace engineer at NASA Langley Research Center, Morgan Speight, a principal engineer with Speight Marshall Francis, and Shannon Turner, project manager and senior structural engineer at Moffatt & Nichol. Speight '14 (CET) and Turner '96 (CEE) are ODU alumni.
Topics included mentorships, professional engineer (PE) certification, the state of the job market, work-life balance and alternative career pathways.
Turner recounted a tale of taking a job in construction after earning her master's degree at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
"I did not tell them I had a master's degree in structural engineering," she said. "I told them I had a high school degree because I really wanted to see from the bottom up, what construction was really like. I wanted to see how that person had to work and what their lifestyle was like. I thought this would make me a better manager when I transitioned into construction later on and help me to supervise and understand them from every level. It gave me a different perspective."
The panelists all agreed that support systems were vital to academic success. "The only way you are going get through engineering school is by finding a core group of folks that you're going to study with all the time, and that you're going to work through problems with and work through classes with," said Bibb. "You are going to learn how to judge other people's different strengths, because everybody brings different things to the problem."
Another topic of agreement was the fulfillment of project completion. "I get a little teary-eyed every time I see a job completed," said Speight. "Seeing an idea go from drawings to real life is always such an exciting feeling, especially for schools and buildings that will be used to bring things to the public."
As the event wrapped up, Stacie Ringleb, assistant dean for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Access, ended the discussion by referencing actress Gabrielle Union's book, "We're Going to Need More Wine: Stories That Are Funny Complicated and True."
"We can't afford to leave any woman behind," Ringleb said. "We need every woman on the frontlines lifting each other up for the good of all of us and the women who come behind us."