The Impact of STEM Outreach
Being a Stanford SWE Outreach Intern over the past year has shown me the emphasis our chapter places on outreach, as well as the impact that our outreach events have on local girls. Generally, we work with K-12 schools to engage local girls in exploring STEM by hosting events year-round that each often last a full day. One of these events that I had the opportunity to volunteer at was our annual SWE Carnival: Girls Engineering the Future outreach event, which brought over 60 girls from 6 local high schools for a day of activities oriented around preparing for college and different STEM fields.
In the morning, girls attended workshops about applying for financial aid, preparing for college, and life as an engineering major. I co-led the financial aid workshop with SWE’s Co-Director of Outreach, Meghana Golla. Through this, I got to see how the girls viewed the financial aid process and share my experiences with the system. There are so many myths surrounding college applications, especially regarding the availability of financial aid for private institutions, and these morning workshops worked towards debunking these myths by providing more concrete information about the process. The girls were excited to learn that there are many options that make private college affordable, and that scholarships can be merit-based as well as need-based. Since all the workshops were led by female undergraduates studying engineering, the girls could ask questions about what life is like as a woman in STEM. This created a comfortable environment that I could see benefitted the girls.
Lunch was accompanied by a panel discussion led by women in STEM, where the girls asked questions ranging from how the women view being a minority in STEM to their favorite hobbies. This allowed the girls to receive insight from women farther along in their careers, and see how diversity in STEM fields has evolved over the years. Following lunch, the girls rotated through activities based off of Stanford Engineering majors such as Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Product Design, Bioengineering, and Civil Engineering. The afternoon activities were each less than an hour long, and provided a good glimpse of the different majors. I led the Product Design workshop in the afternoon, where I helped students prototype their own duct tape wallets and brainstorm areas of improvement. This was meant to help further ingrain in them the ideas of iterative design. In brainstorming ideas for the wallets, I guided the girls to practice goal-oriented thinking–something that engineers do on a daily basis. After that portion of the workshop, we discussed how to ideate and tailor their conceptions to meet economic concepts such as cost and demand, encouraging the girls to work together and interact–key characteristics of successful engineering in the real world. I loved hearing the unique ideas that the girls came up with during the day, which definitely highlighted the creative potential that young girls can bring to STEM.
In retrospect, SWE Carnival was an amazing opportunity for local girls to learn from Stanford students and explore STEM. We hoped to inspire the girls to continue learning about STEM and discovering higher education options, and I believe we succeeded! The girls from my workshop left giddy and excited to learn and experiment with more personal projects in Product Design despite the lack of resources in their local schools. SWE Carnival is just one of the many outreach events that Stanford SWE has been running annually over the past few years. These workshops, and similar ones led by organizations nationwide are working to inspire the next generation of engineers through STEM outreach. With all these new opportunities available, more and more students from low-income and minority backgrounds are getting access to STEM outreach; and the implications? Achieving equal opportunity in STEM within the next generation feels close indeed.
