Empowering Women in Engineering

"Engineering isn't what everyone thinks it is," shares visiting high school student, Shannon Kowalewski. "It's actually problem solving and it's really fun."

On July 17, Kowalewski was part of an enthusiastic group of young women who visited the High Performance Computing Center while participating in "Lady Spartans: Women in Engineering", a week long camp held on the Michigan State University campus. Throughout the week, the group had the opportunity to explore engineering on a deeper level by gaining knowledge and being exposed to hands-on experiences. Although most of these participants already have an idea of what they would like to concentrate on after high school, this camp allows them to further explore potential career paths.

These motivated women shared what they are interested in pursuing, which included a variety of career paths ranging from engineering and biology to computer programming and media arts. One summer camp participant, Tahlia DeCory, even plans to focus her efforts on providing clean water to countries in need.

The groups toured the HPCC and spoke with iCER staff members, and also visited other campus facilities including Dr. Anil Jain's Pattern Recognition and Image Processing Laboratory and the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory.

This was the first year for the "Lady Spartans: Women in Engineering" summer camp with hopes of continuing to provide this program annually. Teresa Isela VanderSloot, Director of Recruitment and K-12 Outreach for Women in Engineering commented, "The HPCC tour was a favorite activity for the women. They enjoyed taking apart a hard drive and getting a tour of the supercomputer."

This camp is hosted by Women in Engineering, Recruitment and K-12 Outreach. For more information please visit them at www.egr.msu.edu/wie

To hear from the participants in a full video recap, click play below! 

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