Prepare For Your Future Workshop
Executive
Summary:
The
“Prepare For Your Future Workshop” was a career development workshop for female
engineering students. It was a two day
workshop offering sessions, activities, and networking to help prepare young
women for entering the profession of engineering or continuing on to graduate
school. The targeted audience was all
engineering females from area universities.
Each of the attendees mentioned that they had gained some valuable
information from participating in the workshop.
2. Narrative Description, including program
goals, schedule, program conduct & content
The
Central Illinois SWE section targeted several SWE strategic issues in putting
on the “Prepare For Your Future” workshop.
The first strategic issue that we hoped to align with through this event
was education. We feel that this
workshop was very educational for the college students who attended. Each of the sessions offered some insight to
help prepare them for their future. The
second strategic issue that we targeted was leadership. We received word that we had funding for
this program in January and we wanted to host the workshop in early March. This meant that many SWE members had to work
together in an organized fashion to quickly pull the event together. We had several new SWE members and several
previously inactive SWE members become very involved in planning the
workshop. Another strategic issue that
we hoped to align with was visibility.
We feel that this workshop introduced SWE to many young women and it
really put Central Illinois SWE on the map for hosting such a great event for
students. The final strategic issue
that we were hoping to target was diversity.
As invitations and announcements of the workshop were being sent out we
targeted several minority groups.
The
workshop began on a Friday afternoon at 2p.m. with a tour of Caterpillar
Building SS – the manufacturing plant for track type tractors in Peoria,
IL. This was a great way for the
students to get a first hand look at “engineering in action”. Next, the participants had dinner at
Avanti’s Restaurant and attended a local hockey game with members of the
Central Illinois SWE section. It was an
evening of networking and socializing – a great way for the students to ask
questions of practicing engineers in a relaxed setting. Saturday morning started off at 8a.m. with
breakfast and a motivational speaker to get everyone going. Following breakfast the participants
attended three educational sessions – “Interviewing Tips”, “Evaluating a Job
Offer” and a panel on “Continuing Education vs. Entering the Workforce”. All of the participants received a folder
full of resume writing and interviewing tips, career statistics, and etiquette
rules. Each of the presenters for the
sessions provided handouts on their topic.
The sessions were followed by lunch and a speaker who presented on the
topic of community involvement. The
workshop was concluded with a hands on session on teamwork.
Following
the workshop many of the attendees commented on how much they enjoyed the
workshop – and during the wrap up, everyone stated that they had gained some
useful information to help them prepare for their future. (Please see the attachments for invitation
letters, registration form, itinerary, and informational folder.)
1.
Measured
results
We
had 30 students registered for the workshop.
Two of these registrants did not attend. We had three high school students show up the day of the workshop
and attend the sessions. Our original goal
was to host 50 students. Considering
the short amount of time we had to prepare and announce the workshop – we
believe that an audience of 31 students was a success. Many of the students expressed appreciation
for hosting the workshop – they thought it was a great and valuable experience.
2.
Publicity
The
workshop was publicized to students through invitation letters (see
attachments) as well as email lists through SWE. The workshop was publicized to Central Illinois SWE members for
help and participation in our newsletter (see attachment) and through email.
3.
Description
of deliverables.
Each
student went home with a folder full of career enhancement information and
handouts.
4.
Lessons
learned
One
very important lesson that we learned early on in the planning was that we
needed more time to plan. We learned
that we got this grant in early January and we hosted the workshop on March 2 –
the planning schedule was very tight.
We are planning to host another similar workshop in the fall of
2002. This will give us adequate time
to plan a great workshop.
Another
lesson that was learned was not to give the students too many options. We initially offered six different sessions
to choose from. Although there were
definitely three favorite sessions picked – the favorites were all over the
board.
5.
Budget
We
came in under budget with this workshop.
Central
Illinois Society of Women Engineers Present:
“Prepare For Your Future”
A Career
Development Workshop
