SWE General Body Meetings
General Meetings are held bi-weekly. Each meeting focuses on topics relevant to women in the engineering school and upcoming events and activities. Food is usually provided for the meetings. Throughout the year, we also hold social events to allow prospective members to meet SWE's officers, members, and each other. Email swe@seas.upenn.edu for information on the next general meeting.
Workshops and Speakers
SWE holds workshops on resume and interviewing skills, and invites speakers from various industries to come in and address our members. Corporations are encouraged to send representatives to assist SWE members in developing valuable career skills, and to educate our members about exciting career opportunities.
Plant Tours
The best way for SWE members to learn about engineering is to see engineers in action, and the best way for SWE members to get a positive impression of your corporation is to invite them to visit. Interested corporations are encouraged to contact us to arrange a tour of your plant facilities that are within a reasonable distance of the Philadelphia area.
High School Shadowing Day
In keeping with our mission to encourage young people, especially young women, to explore engineering as a possible career, we invite groups of high school students to come to Penn and learn about being in college and more importantly, studying engineering. Each high school student shadows a SWE member to a few classes and between classes, has time to ask questions about student life at Penn. We also have a speaker who has had great success in an engineering field to share her experiences with both the college and high school students.
Girls in Technology Day
Elementary and middle school girls from the West Philadelphia community come to Penn each year for this event, which is organized by our Educational Outreach committee. SWE members lead them in various fun science projects that teach them the basics of biology, physics and chemistry. This is SWE's longest running and largest community service project, and it is extremely rewarding for our members to encourage young girls to love science and engineering. Last year's Girls in Technology Day was held at the end of February – we constructed and launched film canister rockets, made ice cream, and took the girls to see the solar car.
Take Your Daughters and Sons to Work Day
Held on the last Thursday each April, this event is one of several planned throughout the day by different groups to which Penn employees can bring their children. Through one or two experiments, we hope to show children of all ages, girls as well as boys, how fun science can be.
Annual Corporate Dinner
The Corporate Dinner is our largest and most celebrated event each year. We invite companies (engineering as well as business firms) to send representatives to participate in this formal evening; students from any major are welcome. During the reception and dinner, students and corporate representatives have the opportunity to discuss aspects of the work environment that might not come up during info sessions and recruiting.
Annual Poster Competition
This annual competition is a recent addition to our list of yearly activities. Co-sponsored by SWE & General Motors, the competition is open to all female undergraduate and graduate engineering students to showcase their independent research projects. Monetary prizes are awarded to the top two posters!