(Yes, this is the promised post on SWE.)
I just got my plane ticket for the national conference. Unfortunately, it seems the prices have gone up by $80/roundtrip :( Definitely $80 I could have used. Still, it's worth it to go.
Regional conference, which I have attended for two years now, is always amazing--500-600 (mostly, but not entirely) women, from engineering backgrounds, from across the northern midwest (IL, WI, MI, IN, MN, IA, ND, SD) gathered in one place for workshops, career fair, interviews, meals, speakers, games, etc. SWE National Conference gathers women from across the United States! From women who have even been hinted to that engineering was "unfeminine," to women who had to put up with awfulness from classmates, professors, and coworkers every step of the way, they're all gathered there to share experiences.
I love my engineering classmates, most of whom are guys, a lot. I am, in fact, gender-blind until I think about it consciously--I don't look for another girl to work with on a project or a homework assignment, I just look for a friend; and that's a guy more often than not. But however natural hanging out with "my boys" may feel, they can never tell me how to make long curly hair look professional, what it's like to spill corn syrup down the front of your extra-dressy clothes that you wore because the upper management was coming to visit, how to manage an engineering education/job with a serious relationship and a family, how to act when you find out your employer is paying your male peer more than you although you do the same work (or you work better than him!). This is why SWE is important to me; sometimes, you just need a woman's advice, and nothing else will do. And sometimes you just need to share experiences with people as much like you as possible.
I have many fond SWE memories of events I've planned, workshops I have attended, but my favorite moments by far are moments of sharing with other SWE members--not just other officers, who are all my friends, but new members, people I didn't normally run into. Ever since freshman year, when I joined, SWE has helped me find fantastic friends, if only for those minutes or hours that we were talking. Mind you, these weren't the kind of friends I would make in the cafeteria, nor the kind I would make in class. We were bonded by something different, a similarity that drew us all to that group and to seek each other's company.
The fond memories of planning events are also embedded in some of my skills. Skills I didn't realize I had until things I thought I was terrible at, I could do well. It was what we call "experience" that I gathered. Experience in running meetings, in foresight and planning, in trust, delegation, communication, and many other things. I learned business concepts--management concepts--without realizing it!
I was talking to a potential employer yesterday at the career fair our career management center (CMC) put on. He asked me in detail about what I learned from SWE. My answer was not eloquent enough for my own satisfaction; I didn't realize he wanted an in depth analysis, or I could have given him one. Truth is, my engineering classes taught me concepts, equations, conventions, at times economics, analytical thinking, and technical writing. My internship taught me about products, and made me pay attention to the business side of engineering--verifying that you have a product of quality. But SWE? SWE taught me the human side of engineering--how to interact with the people we will no doubt be in constant contact with. Part of that was through leadership, part was through SWE workshops and events, but part was through the combination of both.
My mother came to my presentation at the Chicago Area Undergraduate Research Symposium last spring--my labmate and I were presenting a poster. She watched me give a presentation and pointed out how I had learned a certain poise, grace, manner for interacting formally but easily with a person of authority. That didn't come from classes. That didn't come from work or research. That definitely came from SWE.
