This Saturday, the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), a University of Wyoming student club, is hosting Wyoming 5th through 9th grade girls at the WOMENgineering conference.
The one-day event will introduce the participants to every type of engineering through workshops intended to help them discover what kinds of engineering they may be interested in.
"Say they go to a workshop and love it. They might consider that for a career. But if they go to workshop and hate it, they'd be like, okay, that's not the type of engineering for me," said Jacy Busboom, a SWE member and organizer of the event.
There will be five workshops for participants, including a drill simulation and time in the makerspace. The makerspace contains different technologies for students to experiment with such as 3D printing and Lego.
Another major component of the conference is helping the girls find female role models in engineering.
"The goal also is to show them all these women that are going into it, because there's less of a stigma now but there's definitely still a stigma of women in engineering," said Busboom. "And so them being able to see all these other girls their age that are interested in it, and also being able to see these older girls that are actively pursuing it, it's sort of motivational for them to know that they can do it."
This sentiment was echoed by Brianna Diaz another SWE member and conference organizer.
"Together, we can show that there are a lot of girls in engineering and that they can be in engineering too," said Diaz.
This is the third year of the WOMENgineering conference and SWE is optimistic about the future of the conference, citing ample volunteers excited to help out.
Have a question about this story? Contact the reporter, Ivy Engel, at iengel@uwyo.edu.
