Squishing a plastic bag full of blue slime, eighth-grader Beverly Fitzpatrick reflected on her time at Northwestern’s Society of Women Engineers Career Day for Girls.
“I just took a tour of the materials sciences lab,” said Fitzpatrick, a student at Hinsdale Middle School in Hinsdale. “We learned about polymers. This is so much better than what we do in science class.”
Society of Women Engineers and McCormick School of Engineering administrators hosted about 150 middle and high school students and their parents at the 31st annual Career Day for Girls, called “Engineering: Your Pathway to Success,” on Saturday at the Technological Institute.
Students participated in a design competition, toured laboratories in Tech and listened to panel discussions and workshops aimed at highlighting opportunities for college-bound women in engineering.
Taly Huaman, president of the society, said the girls who participated realized that engineering can serve as a background for any career.
“I think the girls here today realized that engineering is not just for geeks and that anyone can be an engineer,” said Huaman, a McCormick senior.
The design competition pitted students against their parents in a race to see who could build the cheapest and most accurate newspaper-tossing device to help deliverers suffering from sore elbows.
“My group’s design worked really well, but it was a little complicated and too expensive,” said Brooke Kelly, an 11th grader at Immaculate Conception High School in Elmhurst.
Her father, John Kelly, an engineering consultant, said he was impressed with the ingenuity of the student teams, but that he found that a simple design worked best.
“Our design was very cheap,” he said. “We won the competition with what is essentially just a slingshot.”
Brooke Kelly also said the tours of Tech laboratories were surprising.
“We went into three chem labs, and they look all gross, and messy, but it’s just so cool,” she said. “You never think they actually have all of those big setups with the bubbling chemicals and lots of beakers, but they do.”
Near the end of the program, older students and parents attended alumni panel discussions dealing with career opportunities for engineers, and younger students participated in a design activity building roller-coasters out of plastic foam.
Juliet Frederick, McCormick ’99, noted that 40 percent of her graduating class was female and credited the McCormick curriculum and efforts of the society.
“I know that this number is way above the national average,” she said. “NU might draw a lot of women because you get such well-rounded education here. It’s not just a technical institution. You have other options, I mean, I took classes about Buddhism and jazz.”
But other alumni said that although McCormick encourages women to become engineers, workplace establishments may not be as balanced.
“There is still a boys club out there,” said Kathleen Lawless, McCormick ’01. “Many women still work with all men and are thought of as ‘that little girl,’ but NU teaches you how to deal with it. Coming out of McCormick, you are prepared for your job and you have a lot of self-confidence.”
