Society of Women Engineers Profile

In a field predominately comprised of males, a group of ambitious females have set out to defy gender norms. The Society of Women Engineers (SWE) was created with the intention of providing women in the engineering field with opportunities for networking as well as exposure beyond the academic community.

According to Eileen Hassett, faculty adviser for UB's SWE, the group was created to provide women in the field with a support and networking system.

"Because you're talking about women engineers, you're not talking about a particular engineering discipline, so what brings everybody together in this organization is the fact they are of the same gender," Hassett said. "Being women in [the engineering] profession is something they have more in common than some technical information that a chemical engineer wants to be up to date on."

Neha Kher, president of SWE and senior computer science engineering major, joined the club because she wanted to participate in the dialogue of ideas. Kher also enjoyed meeting women in the field outside her concentration classes.

In addition to networking, one of SWE's major goals has been to introduce engineering to a younger generation of women before they begin their college careers, according to Elizabeth Uhl, vice president of SWE and an industrial engineering major.

"A big thing for us is to get younger women involved in engineering," Uhl said. "I know a lot of women that don't hear about engineering in middle school and high school."

While SWE strives to spread interest in pre-collegiate women, their focus is to develop connections for students after they embark from the college atmosphere. SWE hosts an annual networking event to help its members find internship opportunities and job placements, Uhl said.

Already, SWE has hosted women from the toy company Fisher-Price, a chemical engineering company from the Buffalo area, and Lockheed Martin to come speak about jobs after graduation, Hassett said.

"It leads to a lot of great networking opportunities, especially for seniors like me who are looking for jobs," Kher said.

According to Hassett, last semester's event brought a respectable turnout of female faculty and students. SWE plans to hold a mixer with hopes of drawing in more women than last semester.

"One of the reasons we decided to do it was because a lot of the undergraduate members said that during their career here as an undergraduate student, they might have had only one woman as a faculty member in an engineering course," Hassett said. "We thought it might be good to see them in a form outside the classroom."

SWE hopes to address the fundamental questions that female engineering students might have, as well as offer perspectives from different professions.

"You should look at your educational experience in total and not just what happens in the classroom," Hassett said. "Joining clubs, or finding something to gain hands on experience as well as internships are things students should be thinking about."

More information on SWE can be found at the UB chapter's Web site at http://www.eng.buffalo.edu/Students/Organizations/swe/.