Please explain why you want to be a member of the Global Engineering RAP at CU Boulder. Please include how you think this community will contribute to your training as an engineer and as a person and how you plan to contribute personally to the residential community: Engineering is still a male dominated field, even with the gender advancements that have occurred in the workplace. With fewer examples, girls can find it difficult to see themselves pursuing engineering as an interest, field of study, or career. I want to be a role model for these girls, a person they can identify with, who can inspire them to pursue STEM in school and as a profession. I believe it is key to connect with girls early in life in order to achieve that goal.
My passion for engineering and sharing knowledge guided me to earn a Girl Scout Silver Award leading over 50 hours of seminars that taught Junior Girl Scouts how to design and build birdhouses. I shared with them diagrams that I had created and printed out as examples. I encouraged the younger girls to experiment and make a birdhouse configuration of their own. I instructed them on workshop safety, and how to use the woodworking machines. As they worked, I walked around to give advice, and supervise each time someone was using a machine. I helped girls who were struggling develop design ideas. The workshops lasted several days, and at the end the girls presented their finished wooden birdhouses and earned badges. The girls and I felt proud of what they had accomplished.
The Society of Women Engineers and the Global Engineering RAP at Boulder are organizations dedicated to assisting college students in the Engineering field. When I am in Colorado Boulder, I will use these connections to educate girls about the engineering field by strengthening the partnership between the Society of Women Engineers and Girl Scouts. I was drawn to STEM in school and want to help keep that spark alive in young girls before it is extinguished by society's expectations.
I plan on continuing to share the experiences and knowledge I have learned throughout my life while in Colorado Boulder, and learn as much as possible from others in your interactive and hands-on engineering program. What we are taught by professors in class is only a small fraction of the learning experience at university and I intend to absorb as much as I can from as many different people as I can.