 There are many words to describe Purdue female engineers. As a Purdue University College of Engineering student, you are automatically part of the Women in Engineering program. We are here to help you make connections and find community. We're not a student club. We are a program at the university where all of the cool, impactful stuff that we offer is based on proven research so that you can not only succeed as a Purdue student but also thrive. We offer several great opportunities for you to get involved, one of which is Women Engineering Mentors and Mentes program. We call it M&M for short. The M&M program is a space for you to engage with your peers, connect with alumni, make friends, and shape your community. We bring in informative guest speakers. We create networking events with your peers and our alums. We also provide mentoring activities, fun social activities, and other professional development workshops as a part of the M&M program. Hi, I'm Leah and I'm from Ellicott City, Maryland, and I'm a senior in computer engineering. The M&M program provides support, strategies, and affirmation. The program is designed for you to build a network with other female engineering students while learning timely, personal, and professional strategies to help you be successful in the classroom and on the job. Mentoring relationships are key for sharing and receiving helpful advice about engineering, college life, and successful preparation for the future. Hi, I'm Amy. I'm from Detroit, Michigan and a senior in industrial engineering. You can benefit from our support, strategies, and affirmation. As a member of the M&M program, you will attend monthly meetings, fun social activities, and informal alumni networking gatherings. You will be able to take advantage of our networking mentoring model where, depending on the situation or the topic, you can act as either a mentor or a mentee. The core of our program are monthly meetings. They are held in the evening as to avoid conflict with your classes. Some of the great benefits you get out of our meetings are free dinner, a fun networking activity so you get to know the other participants, to engage with a guest speaker like a really amazing alum, and an inspirational mentoring activity. Some of the things we talk about in the M&M monthly meetings are creating an impactful resume, how to unleash our creative side, mental wellness and well-being, and budgeting and personal finance. My favorite meeting was when we had a speaker come in to talk about negotiating skills because I learned the importance of negotiating not only future wages, but also work benefits like travel and how to win negotiations between my friends. My favorite meeting was personal finance. It's a topic that doesn't get covered in a lot of my classes, and so I found it super helpful to learn about budgeting, how to break down a paycheck, think about retirement funds, and invest. It was super helpful and informative, and I feel like it helped me prepare a lot for my future. The M&M program has over 500 participants. However, participants are placed in groups of about 40 other people with similar majors. That way, you can get to know a core group of people pretty well. To stay an active member of the M&M program, you must attend at least two monthly meetings, one social, and one access alumni event every semester. For participants seeking to build a smaller, tight-knit community, we also have study groups for courses, small group mentoring, where an upper-class woman or two mentor about five or six first years, and paired mentoring, where we pair a first-year student with an upper-class woman in the same major. Just more ways for you to build your network. Personally, I love being in the M&M program because I can develop myself professionally while getting to be engineers that I can sit within class or see on campus while walking to classes. Sometimes, college in itself is a more welcoming experience. However, investing a few hours a month into a professional and personal development will go a long way to building your skills and a growing supportive network to help you be successful at Purdue and beyond. We hope you are excited about the M&M program, as we certainly are. It is a great place to make connections and find community. Please complete the M&M application that is on the WEAP website under current students. See you in the fall!