A World of Opportunity Awaits

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This past week, I had the exciting opportunity to travel to Houston, Texas to attend WE22, the world’s largest career fair for women in engineering and technology. This conference is hosted by the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), and Purdue’s College of Engineering sponsored 40 SWE members from Purdue to attend! I love that Purdue has opportunities like this to develop well-rounded students. I’m going to share some of the highlights of this trip and what the conference offered!

Rocket Park at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX

Career Fair

The career fair at the SWE conference spans two of the four days, and it is a great environment to speak with companies recruiting women! Many companies were conducting in-person interviews during the conference, and some were even giving out job offers. It was a great place to look for internships, co-ops, and full time positions, as well as network with professionals. Career fairs can be intimidating, but there were plenty of resources at the conference to support students including resume reviews, refreshment tables, and career fair prep rooms!

Keynote Speakers

The conference included one keynote speaker each day, and it was a great chance to hear from incredibly accomplished and inspiring women. The keynotes that I attended were Dr. Phyllis Schneck and Michele L. Sullivan. Dr. Phyllis Schneck is Vice President, Information Security, and Cyber Chief Information Security Officer at Northrop Grumman, and she talked a lot about taking advantage of opportunities and being flexible with your career plan, because you never know what it can lead to. Michele Sullivan was born with a rare type of dwarfism, and she discussed the importance of paying attention to the people at your “kitchen table” and leading with an elevated view of people.

A Chance to Explore the City

Since there are so many fun things to do in Houston, our Purdue group voted on a group activity and we ended up visiting NASA’s Johnson Space Center. Since I’m interested in the Space Industry, this was super exciting! We got to walk around the museum and take a tour of the astronaut training facility. It was so cool to see the actual environment where engineers in the space industry work, as well as see amazing feats from space history such as the Saturn V rocket and the Shuttle. Since the conference usually wrapped up for the evening every day, my friends and I also got the chance to go out and explore the city a bit on our own! It was so fun to find dinner locations and make spontaneous ice cream runs.

Build Community

I had so much fun spending the week with amazing friends that I met in my engineering classes last year. I loved getting to spend more time with them as well as getting to know more people in PSWE that I hadn’t met before. There were also many opportunities to meet students from other schools. I had conversations with students from other universities at our hotel, in lines at the career fair, and at other events throughout the conference. Purdue also plans an alumni breakfast every year, and this was a great chance to form connections with fellow boilermakers and hear where everyone's careers have taken them. It was truly an amazing experience being surrounded by so many incredible women in engineering and technology.

As always, if you have any questions about the conference or the Women in Engineering Program at Purdue, don't hesitate to reach out. Boiler Up!

Ella Richardson, Mechanical Engineering

WE Link Leadership Team


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Purdue Women in Engineering

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