Calling All Women Engineers

One of the greatest programs that brought me to RIT was WE@RIT or Women in Engineering at RIT.  I have a passion for helping others and to help other young women believe that they can do anything, like get involved in mathematics and the sciences.  That is one of the main goals of WE@RIT .  In addition to supporting women in engineering already AT RIT, they reach out to girls in grades 3-12 and help build a love for science and to inspire. 

My journey with WE@RIT began when I was a senior in high school.  I had already applied and been accepted to RIT, but didn’t really know much about it so it got shoved to the bottom of the stack.  One day my mom handed me an envelope I had received from WE@RIT detailed a program called the WE Retreat .  As I read on I discovered that this retreat would actually take place during my spring break from high school and they were going to pay for all of my expenses for the visit.  I had no spring break plans at the time so this was a pretty cool opportunity.  I ended up making the trip all the way from Colorado to Rochester by myself and I credit my being at RIT completely to the WE@RIT program. 

The other major event that I was involved with through WE@RIT was the WE’re in Motion .  This is a program where all of the women engineers get to move in a couple days earlier than everyone else and just meet each other.  My best friends that I have now I met at the WE’re in Motion and still see each other all the time and help each other out with school.  At this program we also did various team activities and got to meet a lot of the female engineer staff members.  If nothing else, this got me acquainted with campus before anyone else and I got a head start on making friends and building a support  system for the rest of my years.  The WE@RIT office is still a place I feel completely comfortable going in for help or support whether it be school or just life in general.  Jodi (the program coordinator) is always in there with a smile on her face.

WE@RIT had everything I was looking for: a support system for women engineers, outreach programs for younger women, and a way to connect and relate to other women engineers on campus.  Coming up, I am signed up to volunteer for Park and Ride.  This is a program that brings younger girls to campus and the college students spend the day building and programming robots with them and teaching.  It helps to get girls excited about engineering, math, and science at a young age.  I am so looking forward to this event at the end of January and will probably be posting more blogs, tweeting, and posting videos from the event.

If you would like to know more about events that WE@RIT hosts you can visit their website here .  If you have questions about engineering or would like to know what a day in the life of a female engineer at RIT is all about keep following my blogs and or follow me on twitter !  Don't let those mean boys scare you away from engineering.  Women DEFINITELY exist at RIT and we ARE engineers.