Social Activities

Vice President of Social Activities

uofuswesocial@gmail.com

The SWE Social Committee provides many events throughout the year where our members connect with each other and form meaningful relationships with their peers. As a minority group in engineering disciplines, women often join SWE to meet other women they may not be able to connect with inside the classroom environment. Member meetings and other social events are necessary to bring women in different fields together to form a support network. Women in engineering are more likely to drop out or change to another major than men, but having a network of women to motivate and encourage one another can be an important factor in preventing these departures.

This year I hope to increase our social attendance by putting on events that people are excited to attend, I also want to expand our reach by incorporating different engineering student groups. If you are interested in joining SWE, but feel intimidated by some of our bigger events, Social is a great place to start and learn more about how we plan events as a section and what it goes into it.

This past year we hosted many successful social events, including monthly member socials, a ‘Women In STEM’ panel with our science majors, a marshmallow tower competition, and bagel week. This coming year we are planning on hosting more social events to kick off each semester and get members excited for the great Outreach and Professional Development activities we have planned.
We will continue our initiative to hold one general member meeting each month, which will feature a presentation on upcoming events and opportunities, followed by an activity which will allow members to eat, relax, and socialize. Our goal is to have our current members be more informed about SWE and feel more cohesive as a group, but also for us to more easily recruit new students and educate them about the benefits of becoming a member.