Students from WISER! (Women In Science and Engineering Represent!) and the Engineering and Tech Scholars learning community celebrated International Day of Women and Girls in Science on February 11, 2019 by hosting a lunch and discussion on the importance of closing the gender gap within STEM fields by reaching out to younger women and increasing retention in science. Club members shared their personal and cultural experiences with STEM gender disparities while empowering each with the notion that resilience is power.
The women continued their festivities at Strava Headquarters on February 12, 2019 for a Girl Geek X Dinner which are hosted weekly at different tech companies in the Bay Area with the aim of women empowerment and career retention in the workforce. Students were funded to attend the dinner through Skyline College’s STEM Pathways Program, a grant-funded project supported by the U.S. Department of Education Developing Hispanic Serving Institution Program (DHSI Award No. P031S180169).
Leading women at Strava, a highly popular and international social fitness network application company, shared their thinking and expertise in areas of career development, meaningful data, iOS and server engineering, scaling to meet demands, branding, and company culture that encourages innovation. Students practiced their elevator speeches beforehand and anticipated the networking event as a first of many for our Skyline College women pursuing engineering and science. It was a highly engaging and inspirational event for our students!
If you are interested in events like this, please stop by our WISER! Club meetings. WISER! aims to empower Skyline College women in their STEM pathways for an improved gender balance within the classroom and workforce. We support each other as fellow peers while celebrating and recognizing our cultural diversity. The club meets every Monday, from 12:00 p.m. -1:00 p.m. in Building 7, Room 7-307. Guest speakers, workshops and off-campus excursions are facilitated based on monthly themes: Careers in February, Women’s History Month in March, Academics in April and Personal Growth in May.
For more information, contact Christal Nevarez, the club president at skyline.WISER@gmail.com or their advisor, Maryam Khan at khanm@smccd.edu.
Engineering & Tech Scholars (ETS), a learning community for students pursuing Engineering, Computer Science and Physics, is now receiving applications for its Fall 2019 cohort.
Apply here: goo.gl/UY1iNZ. For questions regarding ETS, contact Jenny Le at lej@smccd.edu.
Article by Jenny Le, Maryam Khan and Christal Nevarez
