 Hi, Lily, can you hear me okay? Yeah. Okay, awesome. We'll just wait one more minute for Ritika to join us too. Okay, awesome. Okay. Thank you both for joining me. We'll go ahead and get started. So I'll introduce myself. My name is Ava Pradam Keegan. I'm the peer advisor for computer science engineering. And today we're very lucky to be joined by society women engineers. And do you guys want to go ahead and introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about maybe your major and your role in SWE. I can go first. I'm Lily. I am a senior studying civil engineering. And this year I'm the internal vice president. And hi, I'm Ritika. I am a senior in biomedical engineering and I'm the external vice president. Awesome. Thank you guys for being here. So we're going to get started first with talking about what is SWE. If you guys talk about, you know, what types of majors and people are in it and kind of what the goal of the organization is. Yeah. There are people from all different majors in SWE. We really strive to empower women in engineering. And this can range from mentorship opportunities to just having fun socials. But we also really want to make sure that we're being really inclusive so anyone can join SWE. Anyone who supports women in engineering and just advancing that quality there. I also see it as almost like a community for women engineering at University of Michigan just to have the support system within the larger departments. That's awesome. And then with that too, what type of events are usually hosted like I guess social, professional or like outreach and are they on specific days? Yeah, I can take this one. We try to have as many of the different types of events as possible. So the ways we are section of SWE structures, we have five different kind of main groups. So one of them being outreach events where we'll connect with elementary to high school students. The other ones being like charity based events as well as career development events. As well as we are starting to push more to making more changes towards our section in general as well. But there are also opportunities for members to get to know each other through like general body seminars where they can talk to each other and that's every other Thursday pretty much. Okay, great. And then with that too, what would you say the time commitment is like for SWE? Do you need to attend all the events? And then like how has it been for both of you, I guess managing it with engineering? Yeah. You definitely don't need to attend everything. I know SWE puts on a lot. But really what you put into SWE, the events you attend and the things you volunteer for or join subcommittees for, that's what you get out of SWE. So the more you do, the more you get out of it. But we have everything from like being less active to being more active. We give a little bit more priority for things if you're more active in SWE. But you can really gain something at each level, whatever you join in whatever you attend. Perfect. And then I know too, I talked with both of you about this before, but can you talk a little bit about your mentorship opportunities or if there's a specific mentorship program? Yeah, so we have one specific mentorship program directed towards like underclassmen so they can connect with an upperclassman, typically within the same major or the major they're interested in to get a lot more information or just like have a friendly maybe as they like kind of start joining SWE. I don't know if we have anything else to add. Later on in the winter semester, if you are an underclassman wanting to get more involved, we also have an intern program. So that's with like our leadership positions, they kind of move up in SWE. If you are interested in planning some more events or really getting more involved in the community, that's a really great way to see how things are run behind the scenes. That's really cool. Also something really great opportunities. And then also, can you talk a little bit about the professional opportunities that members can gain from SWE? And with that too, I know there's a part of the professional side of the Society of Women Engineers National Conference, if you guys talk about your experience with that too. Yes. So I guess to start in terms of career development, SWE and with TBP host the career fair that's seen in the fall. So it's an opportunity that everyone's welcome to attend. We also host corporate information sessions. So certain companies, if they want to talk to students, they can come have a conversation, typically with like a recruiter and get more information or like talk to them about opportunities. This is also open to anyone, regardless of being in SWE or not. More specifically though, we'll have like resume workshops or different job or scholarship opportunities available for specific SWE members. And then for the other part of it was for the National Conference. I planned it this year, our trip there. So it was really exciting to go with everyone. It's a great bonding opportunity, but also a lot of professional development. You can go to all the sessions that they host as well as the really large career fair that National SWE will host each year. That's awesome. We also have local conferences. So SWE attends both the National and local conferences to really gain insight from both the kind of wider scope of SWE. And then going a little bit deeper, we take a lot of underclassmen to the local conferences so that if you're just starting out, just wanting to hear these workshops, hear about some of these opportunities, those are also options. Those are a lot of great opportunities. That's really cool. And then can you talk a little bit about leadership opportunities as well? I know there's a leadership conference coming up. If you guys want to talk a little bit about that. Yeah, I can touch on that first. So we have the women in leadership conference. I believe it is the 18th of March, a Saturday. It's going to be hosted on North Campus, but anyone can attend this leadership conference. We have a speaker and a couple of workshops. So we are talking about the National and local conferences. This is a lot more tailored to Michigan. It's only a day. And you get all of the things at Michigan so you don't even have to go outside. But it's going to be a really great opportunity to hear from some really great speakers and to kind of dive into some of these topics related to women in STEM. Cool. And for that, would you like to sign up for RSVP before then? Yeah. I believe on our Instagram there is a post about it. That's up for RSVP. Okay, very cool. So there's a lot of great opportunities in SWE. How can students join? Is there a specific way, maybe an application? And then we can talk about maybe events after that. But I think it's joining if you can talk about that. Yeah. So you can go to the website that's SWE.Engine.Urish.org and basically a lot of the information on joining is on there. But pretty much you just have to be a member of the National SWE. And then you can do as much as you want and you'll always be a member for undergrad SWE as well. And then, like Lily said, as much as you want to get out of it, you can choose to be a leader or you can just go to events that you would like to go to. And we do offer like scholarships as needed. We don't want that to be a barrier to joining at all. And again, anyone can join. You don't have to identify as a woman or an engineer. You can, anyone. That's awesome. And then what event do you guys have coming up? I don't know if there's professional or social events that maybe people could go to. I think one of the biggest or closest events that is happening is this Thursday. On North Campus, we'll have our general body seminar. There'll be dinner. You got to hear a woman in engineering usually talk about her experience as well as just meet other members. It's a great way if you're just trying to get to know people or learn more about SWE as a starting point. Oh, perfect. Awesome. And then I guess my last question just to wrap it up. Could both of you share maybe your favorite memory from SWE? Yeah. I can go. So I think SWE is really great. I found, I joined in my first year here and really found a community throughout COVID and throughout all of this, all of the things changing. One of the most awesome things I think is you get to have the leadership experience. You get to do some really cool stuff, but really it kind of, it all comes back to the people involved in it. I really enjoy going to North and just like anywhere you walk you're going to see someone from SWE and you're going to be like, oh, hey, I know you, I've seen you here, I've seen you there and you make some really good friends from it. Yeah. Pretty much similar to what you said. Really nice to just see everyone. I joined sophomore year, so right in the middle of COVID. So it's really fun to get to know the people you might have seen on Zoom calls this like last couple of years. But yeah, even if you're an officer seeing like your event finally come together is always a great thing and then always seeing people around North Campus like Lily said. That's awesome. Well, thank you so much both of you for being here and telling us about SWE. It was really great overview hearing about the professional, social outreach. There's a lot of great opportunities in SWE and I'm excited to see your event on Thursday coming up the general body meeting. So it'll be great. But yeah, thank you both so much for being here and I hope you have a good rest of your day. Thank you. Thanks so much for having us. You too.