SWE introduces high-schoolers to engineering

On Thursday, December 6 and Friday, December 7, 2007, 47 female high school students visited Rose-Hulman’s campus for the Society of Women Engineers’ annual Women Exploring Engineering (WEE) event. The event attracted girls from a three-hour radius and was cosponsored by the Rose-Hulman Society of Women Engineers and the Admissions Office. Event coordinator Natalie Dickman explained, “We run this program in order to give girls in their senior year of high school a glimpse of engineering in an effort to get more girls into the engineering field.” She continued, “While we’re giving them a taste of engineering in general, we are also giving them information about Rose and using it as a recruitment tool. Many of the girls that attended have actually already been admitted to Rose and we’re using the program to help them make their college decision.”

While on campus, the high school students had a busy schedule. On Thursday, the girls arrived at Rose-Hulman’s campus at 5:30 pm. Their evening consisted of an edible engineering/polymer lab, movies, games and icebreakers. Each of the girls was paired with a female Rose-Hulman student who lives in one of the residence halls. Each of the high school girls spent the night in the residence halls with their Rose-Hulman student hostess. On Friday, the girls continued their busy schedule. Their day consisted of a campus tour, a biomedical and chemical engineering lecture and a civil and mechanical engineering lab. They also attended a lecture on “A Day in the Life of a Rose-Hulman Student.”

Freshman biomedical engineering major Kacie Dowers explained her experiences as both a high school student attending the program and a Rose-Hulman hostess, “I love the WEE program, in general, I actually stayed at Rose during the WEE program my junior year of high school. I believe that this program was a large part of why I decided to come to Rose. So when the notices came around this year about housing a WEE girl I decided that I would love to have the chance to influence these girls and show them why I love Rose so much.” Sarah Eberle, a freshman applied biology major echoed Dowers’s positive experience as a hostess. “My favorite part of the program was that I thought I was making a positive impact on the girls experience on whether they wanted to come to Rose or not. I loved being able to answer any questions they had about Rose, and also inputing my opinion of why I love it here! I would definitely do the SWE WEE again!”