WIN 2005-2006 Off To A Stellar Start
October 2005
WIN 2005-2006 is off to a stellar start! With record numbers of students participating, and professionals from an array of diverse fields, the first WIN (Women's Industry Network) meeting of the 2005-2006 academic year was a huge success. On Wednesday, September 28th, 32 first year students and 168 upper class students gathered in the Odeam with 53 professionals and enjoyed dinner, had some networking time and listened to a speaker from General Electric talk about several different fields of engineering while offering practical and often humorous advice to the students in the audience.
Some of the companies represented by the professionals included AstraZeneca, BAE Systems, General Electric, Hewlett Packard, LEGO Systems, Inc., Pfizer, Pratt & Whitney, Raytheon, The Gillette Company, as well as several colleges and hospitals. These professionals work in areas ranging from math and chemistry to education, medicine and engineering representing some of the many employment options open to our students upon graduation. In fact, many of the professionals are WPI alumni themselves. We are always looking for more interested professionals, so please feel free to contact the Office of Women's Programs if you are a professional and this is something that you might find interesting.
The breakdown of students' majors and/or areas of interest were just as diverse with 32 different clusters. Mechanical Engineering was the most sought after group with (25 students broken into four clusters) and others such as Civil Engineering with 22 students in three clusters and Chemical Engineering with 25 students broken into three clusters were close behind. Just these three majors accounted for more than a third of our student participation. This year has seen an increase in participation in all areas of interest/majors. The remaining clusters include Aerospace Engineering (6); Biology (15); Biomedical Engineering (24); Biotechnology (25); Chemistry (9); Computer Science (4); Electrical and Computer Engineering (13); Environmental Engineering (7); Fire Protection Engineering (3); Industrial Engineering (12); Management (6); Manufacturing Engineering (3); Mathematics (4); Medical Professions (10); and finally Technical Writing (2).
The speaker, Nancy Reese Martin, has been an employee of General Electric for the past 22 years, holding 17 different positions in 4 locations. Ms. Reese Martin has held a series of management positions at GE over the years in different areas including aerospace business; software development and testing; corporate marketing and global research. Ms. Reese Martin spoke about some of the work done at GE, some of her personal experiences balancing work and home life and shared insightful stories about her years as a professional in a traditionally male dominated field. Ms. Reese Martin offered several tips for young professionals and took questions from the audience that addressed things such as resume writing, interviewing skills and her approach to hiring employees. Many students and professionals lingered to discuss these issues with the speaker.
The next WIN meeting is scheduled for November 9 at 6 p.m.. The speaker, Ms. Sheila Cavanaugh, an employee of Fidelity Investments will be giving a motivational and inspirational discussion WIN participants do not want to miss.
Maintained by webmaster@wpi.eduLast modified: June 21, 2007 13:09:13