Women in STEM at RPI: Your Journey to Success Starts Here

All right. Welcome, everyone. We're just going to give everybody a couple minutes just to get logged on and ready to go.

All right, we'll go ahead and get started. Welcome, everyone. Thank you for joining us with the Women in STEM at RPI Webinar. My name is Leslie Labrecque. I am one of the assistant directors of Undergraduate Admissions here at RPII. Am joined tonight in my chat box by Sarah Maliaric, who is another one of the assistant directors who's going to be monitoring our chat box. But just a couple quick notes before we get started. The chat box is monitored, so you're welcome to ask questions at any time. They might not pop up right away.

You will eventually see them as we let them through, and then we will get answering them as quickly as we can. Some of them will save to the end so that our students can answer them. So if you have questions specifically for the students, feel free to ask those as well. If you're having any technical difficulties tonight, feel free to try to close out your window and come back into the webinar. Sometimes that fixes it. But if you're having any trouble with hearing anyone, please let us know in the chat as well.

And without further ado, we are going to go ahead and get started.

So I'm going to start tonight with just some insight on the different clubs and organizations and supports that we have for our female identifying students at Rensselaer. And then we will hand it over to our wonderful panelists for tonight to tell you a little bit more about themselves and their experiences as well.

So this first slide just shows some of the clubs and organizations that we have as additional supports for our female engineers on campus. One of which is the women's mentorship program who provides one-on-one peer mentoring for all of our female identifying students. So you are paired as a first year student with an upper class student who is your mentor and they can help you both academically and socially through mentorship.

And become kind of a buddy on campus to provide different insights and backgrounds to kind of what they have experienced on campus as well.

They also do various professional development, different networking events and workshops, as well as social events. So they might have study hours or craft nights or dinners. So it's nice to build that kind of professional network but also have the social background as well. Then we also have our Society of Women Engineers, also known as WE, and they have a bigger focus on leadership, professional development, networking and outreach specifically for women in engineering. They also do various study sections. They have scholarship information.

There's a national conference, so there's a lot of professional growth in that one as well. And then outside of that, we also have lots of other major based programs, so things like our women in business or women in computing. So there's a lot of different organizations specifically centered around women for the various opportunities that we have on our campus.

And then outside of those clubs and organizations, we also have other on campus support such as our Center for Career and Professional Development, where they have specific career resources and job boards and networking opportunities for women in STEM. We also have a women's athletics program with an athletic mentorship program similar to that women's mentorship program, but with athletes paired with other athletes. And then you'll hear from our students who are in sororities, but we do have many sororities on campus which can provide mentorship, professional resources.

And community building as well. And without further ado, I will pass it off to Corinne, who's going to be our first presenter for the evening.

I was gonna say.

Hey, I'm good with. I'm good with whatever.

OK, I can take it away. So hi everyone. My name is Brooke. I am a sophomore here at RPI and I'm currently dual majoring in computer science and information technology and web science. It's pretty common to do like dual majors here. So if that's something you're interested in, you know, and you want to get interested in a bunch of different extracurriculars, it's definitely a thing that you can do here.

So here's just a brief little introduction onto why I chose RPI. So I knew I didn't want to go too far from home. I'm from Connecticut, so it's a little over 2 hours from here. And my dad came here and he very much hyped it up, you know, for the two years he was here. And I just knew that a lot of people were coming here to pursue some sort of STEM related degree. And that just was what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to do something in the STEM world. And the ITWS program was actually something that very much attracted me to the school.

Because it was something that was not offered basically anywhere else. So it catered to my interests. You know, it helped me. And the program's very small. So it, I feel very, you know, attended to like I have access to professors and help at all times, you know, at the smaller school. And, you know, I don't feel like I'm just a number, you know, I have some pictures over there. But there's the hockey game. Very, very big. You know, that's actually me and my roommate's families. We went together.

In the middle, that's like my friends that are, you know, outside of my sorority, 'cause, you know, don't need to join a sorority to have friends here.

And there's plenty of opportunities to meet other women. So just a little about what I'm doing with my degree. So the ITWS, that's information technology and web science. It's smaller. It's more focused on, you know, website development, you know, a little bit of business, you know, a little bit of computer science and focusing on web development and web science and all of that good stuff. And then the computer science degree, that's more of, you know, the technical stuff, the coding, the more theoretical and analytical side of computer science.

And with both of these, there's many different focus tracks. So if you have an interest, you know, in data science and machine learning, you know, there is a lot of pathways that you can take to make it your own.

So a little on some clubs and activities that I'm a part of here on campus. So the biggest thing that I think I am in is Alpha Gamma Delta. This is a Panhellenic sorority that I am a part of. Previously we're talking about p Beta Phi. But this is Alpha Gamma Delta, and it's honestly one of the best things I did. I really did not expect to join a sorority. I was very much in the mindset that everything was like Alabama rush and everything was going to be this crazy big thing.

But like it was said previously, you know, we are a little bit of a nerdier school and you know, the people that it attracts, you know, nobody's that crazy and Alpha Gamma Delta, we work with Feeding America and Meals on Wheels for our philanthropy. So just, you know, helping the hungry and the connections that I've had with sisters in the house and outside of the house has helped me both professionally and socially. So not only am I getting to meet these amazing women and, you know, stay up till 2:00 AM talking about, you know, who knows what, it's also giving me great academic and professional.

Opportunities with connections to those sisters. There's also a bunch of volunteer opportunities that we offer, you know, on campus. I know we work with the food pantry that just opened this year that is on RPI campus. We also go off campus. We help downtown, we help it like other institutes nearby. And honestly, it's nice to do these philanthropy things. It's nice to do the social things with a bunch of women that share that same interest. And I think it's just a great time. So I do highly recommend Sorority Life here.

And some other things outside of the sorority that I do as well. I'm part of the ski club up here at RPI. There's great opportunities to go skiing. You know, you're not really more than like an hour and a half, two hours from like really good mountains either like in Vermont or Massachusetts. So if you like being on the mountain and skiing or snowboarding, it's great. We get student discounts. We get shuttled to and from there with big coach buses. So that's also great. And I'm also part of ACMW, which is the Association of Computing Machinery, and that's the women's chapter here.

So that's basically a bunch of women and we do a lot of computing things. They had resume building workshops. Umm, they'll do stuff for like hackathon. They'll have different web development classes that you can go take and uh, people will come in and teach those classes, you know, on different coding languages and just help those skills as well, you know, with a bunch of women. And I think it's a great way to meet other women in tech.

So in terms of long term and what I'm thinking for my career, I'm planning on staying for a fifth year. So I'll stay here four years for my undergrad degree in ITWS and CS. And then for my 5th year, I'm planning on doing one year here for the accelerated masters program, hopefully to get my MBA because I'm planning on doing something with business, maybe project management. I'd like to incorporate that into the tech side of the computer science and IT degree that I'm doing here. And you know, I love Disney.

Like anything creative. So honestly, if I could, you know, get the business side, the technical side and work for some creative company, that would be great. And yeah, that's pretty much all I have to say. Thank you guys.

I think Lily's up next.

Sorry it took me a second to click my mic back on, but yeah, I guys, I'm Lily. I'm also graduating this year. I'm a senior, so I'm graduating with my bachelor's degree. And yeah, so today I'm gonna similarly go over kind of why HRPI, why pitch chemical engineering specifically, and then a bit of my club's involvement and I'll gear it towards more of my.

UH clubs geared towards women and life on and off campus. So why chose RPI? These are some beautiful pictures I took on campus, all from my freshman year. But.

The sights still look the same.

But yeah, I chose RPI a lot because of the yin Yang that I feel like it brought. It had a lot of balance, which was very attractive to me. While they have big lectures, which was nice for me because I went to a small high school so I could have more of that college feel and experience, they're also paired up with smaller recitations of like 20 students. So I got to have that big feeling, but I also got to have more of the personal one-on-one time that I was more comfortable with.

It's also a medium sized school, UMM, as seen by the staff of the undergraduate number there, and there's also a wide variety of STEM majors. Although I chose RPI and I stuck with it, I liked having the notion that if it wasn't something I was truly passionate about, there's a good chance that with my love for STEM, there would be something for me to fall back on. It's also very easy to get involved, as you can see from all the presentations.

UH today and there's lots of activities going on on and off campus and there's a really amazing job network. I've been to all of the career fairs thus far.

And it's really great in terms of setting you up for success.

So chemical engineering, umm, what is it? I often get that question. It's really umm, taking a chemical process and putting it to a larger scale. So it does have a good emphasis on chemistry, but it's more umm, larger applications, so not as much micro and a lot more macro. Umm, most importantly, it has a hard eye starting and median salary. So really set yourself up for success.

Umm, and there's a good balance also, again, between hands on and sit down work, as are many different facets of engineering. And it's a good, uh, industry. There's a lot of job opportunities, there's a lot of growth. You can see by the employment sector here that there's a lot of different areas that you could go into, a lot of variety.

And there's also the option if what I'm doing now, graduating and going right into industry, or you can also go and get a masters or some students do a PhD. They like more research focused aspect of chemical engineering. And coming out of high school, it just felt a good combination of the math and sciences that I really loved.

Clubs and campus involvement. So I've admissions ambassador, I've been involved in Greek life. I, uh, was in the sorority Alpha P and then I'm also a fraternity sweetheart.

I've been involved in the Society of Society of Women Engineers, not as active as some of my peers. A lot of my close friends hold executive positions, but I've gone to some of their events. One of my favorites actually being a sweet career night where we got to table with and have a banquet with different companies who came in and talked to women. Uh, just from these different careers and different companies and network with them, which is a really great opportunity.

I've been involved with Rensselaer Chemical Society. I was a mentee for the women's mentoring program, so my freshman year I came in as a mentee and was paired up with a chemical engineer a few year or two older than I.

As well as there was other UH-2 freshmen chemical engineers. So we had our little small group and we met every week or so and kind of just got to talk. We'd have little activities that we do together and it was a good way to socialize, meet other women on campus and just get advice.

The American Institute of Chemical Engineers is another club I'm involved in, and I've also done research. Umm, I only did it for one semester, but I worked with synthetic photosynthesis, so we looked at different and more coordinates to figure out.

Potential catalyst for oxidation. And I've also done 2 internships now, one with Crestlon and one with Helion. Cressillon was more of a smaller startup, so I got to have that experience. And then Halion is a larger company that actually manufacturers a bunch of different consumer healthcare products. The location I was at specifically did toothpaste, so Sensodyne, Prodambal, uh, Periodontax, I got to work in the engineering department there, which was really cool.

And post graduation I will be working.

At a rotational in a semiconductor company called Integris. So I'll get three years of different facets of engineering before really settling down to what job I want to take on moving forward, which is a really cool opportunity.

My life on and off campus. I lived on campus for two years and I've been living off campus now for two years, so I've got to experience both. I'm still super duper close friends with my buddies from freshman year that were in my freshman dorm so.

I'm really grateful for that.

When I was on the meal plan, I loved hanging out in dining halls just to kind of sit down, relax, have a bite to eat. I also love going to sports games, especially hockey. We have D1 hockey here. Our other athletics are D3. I've been to football, soccer. I have not been to any basketball games even though I should. My family loves basketball, but probably my most.

Favorite thing to go to is the hockey games where there's definitely a lot of spirit there.

I also like just hanging out at Folsom Library for a nice quiet study space. It's also very scenic. It overlooks downtown Troy, which is our regional area nearby, so it's quite nice, especially in the fall. You get to see all the foliage change. And then the union. I like to hang out there too. The student union's definitely a bit more rambunctious. It's really cool to kinda just chat and have more of a loud space, like if you're working on a group project.

Or maybe you wanna go get Panera and hang out with a friend. That's a great place to go.

And yeah, as I mentioned kind of a bit more previously, the clubs in Greek life I've been involved with, but they also have open meetings a lot for people to kind of just dip their toe in the water to see if it's something that they want to do. So Sweet and Woman's Mentoring Program have teamed up before to host like, Valentine's Day and other little events.

Also, with Reeks Life fraternities and sororities, you can go to recruitment events and just see if that's something for you. And it's really cool to get to know other people, even if it's not something that you commit to all the time.

And then yeah, it's also just nice to walk around campus when the weather is nice, like days like today, it's really great to get outside and get some fresh air. We have a lot of beautiful flowers and trees on campus too. Explore. And then off campus, I love going to the farmers market. It just moved back outdoors, so the farmers market in Troy is one of like the top five in the Northeast. So it's a very big attraction. It spreads throughout the streets. So it's a really good way to get some fresh air and also support small businesses.

There's also a lot of restaurants and shops in downtown Troy to support some more, some more small businesses. And then if you're looking to go further into that, I've been to Albany a few times. I wanted a boat tour. That's actually a picture of me and my grandma on the top at a boat tour, uh, that we went on my freshman year. So I got to lot to know a lot about Albany and Troy and our history of manufacturing. There's also some museums, concerts, there's an ice skating rink over there that's outdoors for free in the winter, which is really cool.

I also sometimes just have fun running out to Walmart and getting some groceries and needs with friends. A few of these pictures are actually just us on the bus or outside Walmart in a group just having fun. And then especially in the fall and winter when it gets a little colder, there's some more geared activities like apple and pumpkin picking. It's one of my favorites. Corn mazes. Haunted houses. They also have some haunted houses on campus too. Winter activities isn't really my Forte, but there are a lot of options for those who do.

Like to go ice skating, skiing, snowboarding? There's a roller skating rink and a bowling alley nearby, and then just sledding around too. But yeah, that's all for me and I'm gonna throw it over to Emily.

Great. Thank you everyone. If you all want to pop up on camera, I have a few questions I'm going to ask. If anyone has questions for our students, please pop them in the chat. But the first question I'd like to talk about is something I didn't mention earlier, but the ratio here is about 32% female. And so I always like to ask kind of, is that something that has impacted your time at Rensselaer or is it something you've noticed it's made a big difference or is it something that is?

Just kind of something that is the truth, but that you haven't noticed a whole ton.

Whoever wants to start.

I mean, I can, I can kind of start it off. Umm, I mean, I knew that the ratio was going to be, you know, predominantly male when I did, you know, sign up to come here. But umm, and especially like in computer science, there are some majors that like, you know, oh, you might see more women in, you know, that won't be as heavily like male dominated. But The thing is that I like to say is like, I feel like it's preparing me for the workforce. Cause like, I feel in the real world, like, you know, men are still kind of outnumbering women, especially in the fields. So is, you know, kind of.

Prep for seeing that ratio in the real world. But I've never really had a problem like in my classes, like having, you know, girls to sit with if I want to, you know, I always have a friend in there that is, you know, willing to sit with me and struggle with me. So I've never really had like an issue with having, you know, female friends in the class.

Yeah, I feel like just kind of building off that, uh, I feel like the community of women here are very vocal that although we make up about 30%, it's a very loud 30%. We're all in a ton of clubs and we all really come and represent at the end of the day. I mean, even just as missions ambassadors and tour guides, the vast majority of us are women. So you're seeing a lot of our faces every day.

Umm, for my personal experience, I feel that.

You're fine.

The major, it's pretty 5050. Umm, so I in the classroom have a lot of girls that I can hang out with. But I think on campus, as I said, it's not super visible in my opinion that it's a 3070 because you just have so many girls who are just doing their most and really putting their best foot forward.

Awesome. Another question that we just got from one of our attendees is what is the process for joining the women's mentoring program as a mentee? Lily, do you wanna chat or grin? You wanna talk first?

OK.

Lily, anything to add?

That's OK.

That that would ha, that's, that's the story.

Perfect. All right, Yeah. So we had a few questions asked. So do people usually sit outside on chairs and and hammock?

Everyone's going to nod.

Are clubs easy to join and accessible to do events with?

Yeah, I can imagine on my side, umm, a lot of clubs will host open events or even as you're not a member, they have it so that everyone can come join and just kind of get a feel for the club and meet different members. So it's not really a full commitment. You're just gonna going if you have a piqued interest or maybe you just want some free food, whatever it might be, or you're interested in activity, it's easy to get involved without feeling super pressured to be involved. So.

They've like I said, they've been like paint defense where you can go for different clubs and join. Some will do like a pizza night or a late night, whatever it might be. And you can try to get to know the people that way, enjoy that way. I mean, I know the Red Slayer Astronomy Club will have like open meetings. So you can just use like the observatory that we have here on campus. So even if you don't want to join the club, but you want to have some experiences on campus.

It's up to you the level of commitment that you want to put forward with that.

Awesome, And are most people on campus part of Greek life or is it not the majority?

And do most people go to RPI hockey games?

I mean, I could talk on this. I go to the like a lot of the hockey games they do have like a season pass that you can actually purchase if you want to go to like every single one. But me and my friends, you know, it'll be like a Friday, Saturday night. We'll make a day out of it. You know, we go, we dress up, you know, I know my parents came up for the big red freak out. That was I think back in February this year. That was gigantic. A lot of people like it. It's a lot of fun to just go Puckman's out there taking pictures. Like that's a lot of fun. And honestly, it's like one of my favorite things to do on campus. I love.

And watching hockey, both men and women, like they're both amazing. So I do highly recommend going to hockey games.

I also love going to the hockey games.

And then we have a question in the chat as well of did you find your roommate beforehand or did RPI randomly select that for you? And how did that work out? I know a lot of you have said now you live with people you've met through your major sororities, but for the first year, kind of what did housing look like for you?

I can start UMM, so there's two options. You can put in a request for like a specific roommate when you fill out the housing application. Or what I chose to do was to fill out a survey in the housing application so that I was matched with someone. I ended up UMM, with a freshman roommate who UMM was lived in the nearby area, so I had a bit of more space to myself 'cause he would go home every now and then.

But unfortunately she ended up transferring schools but we still.

Friend contact was a great time. We loved hanging out when she was here. But that's my experience. Anybody who wants to see elsewhere.

I mean, I could talk about like, so I did do the survey and I did get matched. I also did like commit to the school. I think like the day like that. It was like due to put down your deposit. So then I was like kind of scrambling for a roommate and you know, I was like looking through the compatibility things that they put and people that they matched me with. But there's also like unofficial like Instagram pages that people will make. And that's how I personally found my roommate because I reached out to this one girl and she was like, Oh, like you seem so sweet. Like I already found a roommate, but I was talking to.

Girl, like I could put you in contact with her and we're best friends still. Like we had such a good time. I'm best friends. You know, I'm actually seeing her tonight. We're having a movie night tonight. So, you know, it worked out. So I think either way, you know, I haven't heard horror stories, you know, whether you go random, whether you meet them on Instagram, the compatibility, like I feel like everyone's chill here.

Oops sorry my mic was turned off. And then we also have a question of do you recommend or did anyone do any special housing like living in learning communities during their freshman year? I know we don't have a ton of specialized housing at the moment, it kind of rotates every now and then, but I don't know if anybody had any insights.

Yeah, I know we've we had some, but they they haven't become as popular recently.

The only other question that I usually like to ask is about safety. As a female on campus, have you ever had any issues with safety? Do you feel really safe on campus in Troy, etcetera? If you want to chat to that a little bit.

I mean, I could start us off. Umm, my mom is a crazy helicopter mom. I'll put that out there first. She was like #1 concern was, you know, safety, safety, safety. Umm, and we have a blue light system here. Like I know a lot of campuses do. Like I always point that out on the tours. Umm, I always see like pub safe, like our on campus, like Police Department, like public safety department. They're always like, you know, going around campus, like I always see an officer, I always see a car. You know, the Troy Police Department is like right down the hill.

So that's also great. I see them often, you know, a couple blocks off campus. We have like a hospital, we have an on campus like ambulance that like students do run. One of my friends is actually part of the club that like runs the, the ambulance. And then there's also a fire like department like right down the street. There's just a lot of like resources, you know, within a couple blocks of campus. I've personally never felt unsafe. You know, I mean, my mom's biggest thing was like I had to go somewhere that was safe and they really reassured her and I've, you know.

I mean, common sense whenever you're out anywhere, but I've never felt, you know, uncomfortable on campus.

Beautiful. Any other questions from the chat box feel free to add them in. If not, I always like to leave it on a positive note. And if you would like to share your all time most favorite thing at RPI, something that you maybe weren't expecting to love so much or a food, anything on campus, what is your most favorite thing about it?

I could start umm, I would say that I didn't expect to enjoy studying on campus as much as I did. There's a place in the chemical engineering building called Cooley Lounge, which is a area for chemical engineering students to study and it's surrounded by professor offices and that's just kind of a community that I didn't expect. Umm, I found it a bit later than I would have liked to. I would have liked to know, is it like a freshman, sophomore? But I really.

And become a regular until my junior, senior year. And it's just really nice to kind of just study, have a little bit more of a group and then even involvement from professors because their offices are right there. They'll just come up and be like, hey, how's this project that I assigned you going? Do you need any help? And it's just like, instead of seeking out the help, it's kind of given to you. So it's a really cool space and I definitely have underutilized it. And I would recommend if you have spaces like that for your major to seek them out.

I could just talk about mine. I mean, honestly, the sorority, you know, I feel like I've said it a lot. It was honestly one of the best things I decided to do. I really was not expecting to join a sorority. Like I was so like, I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do it. My mom was like, I feel like you'll enjoy it. And then I did it. And like, you know, just talking. I live in the house currently just talking with, you know, my friends till like 2 in the morning about, you know what, making a Digiorno frozen pizza at 3:00 in the morning. You know, just the stupid things, just the fun things, just hanging.

Out with people, you know, it's just like the little spontaneous adventures that we get to do. And, you know, being in the house does help with that. But yeah, it's just the little things for me that just kind of add up.

Awesome. Well, thank you all so much for joining me tonight to give some insight on your experiences. Umm, I just posted my e-mail in the chat box, but I also have had the admissions e-mail and the student ambassador emails up on the screen. So if anybody who has joined us tonight has any further questions for me or any of the students, feel free to reach out to one of those emails. And with that, thank you all so much and.

We hope you have a great rest of your night.