Society of Women Engineers gives glimpse of engineering field to hundreds of young girls

Feb 19, 2018 7:27 AM Feb 19, 2018 10:28 AM

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EDWARDSVILLE - Hundreds of girls from the fifth grade to eighth grade joined one another Saturday morning at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville for the sixth annual “Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day” hosted by the Society of Women Engineers.

The all-day event gave girls the chance to get a glimpse of engineering through activities that included the fields of civil, mechanical, electrical, industrial and computer science.

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“This event is wonderful for young girls because women don’t make up a huge part of the engineering field and we want to get the girls interested in what we do at a younger age so they can start thinking about it before they go to college or even high school,” Chrishawna Nash, a senior computer science major and Society of Women Engineers youth outreach chair, said in a press release. “Our goal remains the same, to encourage young women to pursue a STEM-related field.”

Lauren Hammel, who helped organize the Society of Women Engineers event, said the activities for the day were designed to help immerse the participants in all the possibilities that could be pursued in the engineering field.

“We show them that there is a possibility for them to go into these fields. It’s so important to have these events for young girls because often they might feel, even though it interests them, they might not be able to succeed in a path like that or maybe that they just wouldn’t fit in there.” Hammel said Saturday morning. “We just want to show them that literally, anything is possible.”