For 25 years, NC State’s Women in Engineering (WIE) Program has created opportunities for women interested in engineering and helped improve representation. The program’s work has made a lasting impact. Last year’s incoming class at NC State was 33% women, well ahead of the national average of incoming women in engineering programs at 20%.
On Saturday, Sept. 24, WIE celebrated this success with a day for students of all ages to learn about engineering, future career paths and more on NC State’s Centennial Campus.
“[Today] is indicative of the engineering program as we know that we have to start very young getting girls interested in engineering,” said Laura Bottomley, director of Women in Engineering, Engineering Education and The Engineering Place. “We do that by explaining and showing what engineering is and that engineers are people that make a difference in the world.”
Since 1997, the program has supported the growth of women in engineering by building a community that encourages young women to further develop their identity as engineers while showing them how they can make a difference. The celebration emphasized the university’s dedication to making space for women and their contributions within engineering to create and support a more diverse and inclusive workforce.
“The program and all of our faculty, staff and partners come together to make a climate where the moment a young woman steps on campus, she sees herself as belonging here, and she sees a clear pathway toward her future and engineering,” Bottomley said.
The morning session welcomed K-12 students to explore engineering and learn how NC State supports them on their journey. Elementary and middle school students tackled engineering challenges that included building the tallest towers that could hold an egg and designing and constructing a playground with turns and hills for a pet mechanical bug. Meanwhile, high school students learned about the Grand Challenges of Engineering and the opportunities available for NC State engineering students, including studying abroad, co-op work experiences and engaging in entrepreneurship.
In the afternoon, NC State alumna shared their advice with current engineering students.
The first afternoon event featured two guest speakers: Radhika Venkatraman, M.S. in computer aided engineering ‘95 and M.S. in computer science ‘96, and Steffanie Easter, B.S. chemical engineering ’85. Venkatraman has more than 20 years of experience in leadership roles in telecommunications and finance, and Easter is the senior vice president and chief sustainability officer at Cobham Advanced Electronic Solutions Students asked for advice in navigating the workplace and how to build their careers. Both women explained the importance of embracing your authentic self, giving your best, finding mentors and sponsors who serve your needs and getting comfortable with not being your perfect version of yourself.
The second afternoon event was a Q&A held with eight recent graduates who fielded questions from current students about how to make the most of their time at NC State and what goes into finding success after graduation. Speakers explained the importance of recognizing the contributions that you put in, standing up for yourself, finding and accepting opportunities when you can and how college teaches you to have the confidence to figure out problems.
A luncheon in between sessions featured speeches from Dean Louis Martin-Vega and keynote speaker Bhavana Bartholf, chief analytics and innovation officer at Bank of America and master of science in integrated manufacturing systems engineering ‘08. During her speech, Bartholf explained what it means to have representation here at NC State.
“You cannot be what you can’t see,” said Bartholf. “Having the representation that we have here is a great sign, and having female faculty makes a huge difference in regards to attracting women in the organization. The more women here, the more women we will attract to the university, and we can only go up from here.”
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