Women engineers at USU are both beauty and brains
To celebrate Engineering Week, the USU Society of Women Engineers (SWE) section is sponsoring the second Annual Ms. Engineering Queen Pageant Wednesday, Feb. 18 at 4:30 p.m. in the TSC Sunburst/International Lounge. The competition is open to any female engineering major, and anyone is invited to watch the competition.
Sara Driggs, SWE section president and senior in mechanical aerospace engineering, said the idea for the pageant came after members watched the Miss America Pageant last year at the SWE Regional Conference in Pasadena, Calif.
“All of a sudden the idea hit us all at once, ‘We should do a pageant at Engineering Week,'” she said. “We had three weeks and we pulled the whole thing off. This year it’s really exciting to do it again.”
Driggs said the pageant consists of three sections: the “Engi-Nerd” competition, where contestants dress up like nerds; the business attire competition and the evening wear competition. This year, she said, they are also adding a nerdy man competition for male engineers, who will also escort the women in the evening wear competition.
Driggs said the Ms. Engineering Queen Pageant is one of many activities sponsored by SWE, a national organization designed to help collegiate and professional women in engineering succeed and advance. The USU section, which has doubled in size from 25 to 49 members this past year, has put on professional development workshops, holiday parties and given presentations about engineering to junior high school-aged girls interested in math and science.
Driggs said meeting with the young girls was one of the section’s favorite activities.
“We introduced the idea of engineering to junior high-age girls,” she said. “It’s really neat.”
Each year, Driggs said the chapter also travels to the SWE Regional Conference, which was held in Albuquerque, N.M., this year. Driggs said of the 60 collegiates from five states in attendance, 16 were USU students.
“USU had a really nice presence,” she said. “Everybody knew USU was there.”
Driggs said the conference includes workshops, speakers and a career fair to help students network with professionals that may not be aware of USU or visit Utah.
Something good always comes from the conference,” she said. “Somebody gets an internship or an interview … or opportunities they would not have had otherwise.”
Amy Jo Bowdidge, mechanical aerospace engineering senior, is also involved with SWE as the Regional Collegiate Representative (RCR). She and one other representative in Southern California are responsible for about 34 SWE sections in New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada and Southern California.
“Regional Collegiate Representatives are the connection from membership to the national level of the society,” she said. “I’m their voting voice.”
Bowdidge said she informs sections of new items to be voted on and the new ideas and things discussed at a national level and then votes on the issues.
Bowdidge said SWE is an important organization because it helps create a level playing ground for women in engineering. She said the society has about 21,000 collegiate and professional members, which creates many valuable networking opportunities.
“As collegiates we can look at the SWE professionals, see the paths they took and how they got there,” she said. “It’s really cool to have that community. It’s a good way to connect with other women and network.”
Bowdidge said she is proud of the growth the USU section has experienced.
“This year I was really proud of our section. We doubled in membership and had a huge presence in (the SWE conference) in Albuquerque,” she said.
Driggs said the SWE’s greatest strength is in its accessibility to all women engineers.
“I think SWE is awesome,” she said. “Most important, anyone in the college of engineering – married, single, collegiate, professional, freshman or graduate – anyone can join SWE.”
–karlie.brand@aggiemail.usu.edu