Wow!  I can’t believe that we are already halfway through November!  This semester really seems to be flying by, but I am looking forward to Thanksgiving Break before the final grind at the end of the semester.Over the past month, several of the fabulous graduate students that organized graduate school and graduate student related sessions for WE11 have been writing up summaries about their sessions.  I have posted them all here on the blog so that you can read through them and cram in some graduate student professional development.

Having attended several of these types of sessions at WE Conference over the past few years, I am sure that we had record attendance for graduate student related sessions!  If you were there, I am so glad you were able to join us, ask questions, and make these sessions a success.  If not, hopefully you can sift through the summaries to see what you missed — and be excited to join us next year at WE12!

• Graduate Students and SWE: Growing Opportunities
• Designing Hands-on Learning for Kids
• Emerging Career Pathways for PhDs
• Ethical Dilemmas in Research and Graduate School
• Entering Industry with a Graduate Degree
• Funding Your Graduate Education
• Quick Tips on Teaching Engineering
• Applying for Graduate School
• Minority Women: Diversity and Mentoring in the Research Environment
• Navigating the Academic Career Pathway
• Global Opportunities for Graduate Students and Post-Doctorates
• To Post-Doc or Not to Post-Doc
• Transitioning from Industry to Graduate School
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I hope this has convinced you to join us for WE12 in Houston next year!  If you’d like to get involved, applications for the WE12 Graduate Programs Coordinator are out now, and we will soon be organizing a call for participation for similar sessions for WE12.  Stay tuned!

This workshop was meant to help current graduate students and graduate degree holders negotiate if they should complete Post-Doctoral research position in order to achieve their career goals. The panel discussed the benefits, drawbacks and limitations of Post-Doctoral positions in an effort to allow the workshop participants to decide if it is applicable for their professional journey.

​The workshop consisted of a panel of a current Post-Doc, Marcella, a completed Post-Doctoral researcher Diane Peters and a current faculty member who completed a Post-Doc Laura Fabris. The moderator, Richelle Thomas, directed the lively discussion. The panelists were very open about their experiences and attendees left the workshop with a realistic glimpse of the Post-Doc life and options thereafter.

This panel session addressed the growing presence of graduate students in SWE, and the many opportunities for growth and leadership for this collegiate membership sub-sect.  This session especially highlighted the creation of graduate student focus groups, or committees, in several collegiate sections across the US, and discussed several membership incentives for graduate SWE members.
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Panelist and moderator Prinda Wanakule (University of Texas at Austin and SWE Graduate Member Coordinator) started off the discussion with an overview of the Graduate SWE Committee at UT Austin, one of the older and larger graduate SWE groups in the US.  Tabitha Voytek (Carnegie Mellon University) followed with her successful experiences with the SWE Grad Greets program at CMU.  Younger graduate groups of different sizes were also represented by Courtney Faber (SWE Graduate Branch at Cornell University), Marcella Vaicik (SWE Group for Grads at the Illinois Institute of Technology), and Rebecca Macdonald (SWE Graduate Student Group at the University of Alabama). 

Each representative gave an overview of the leadership and reporting structure of their specific graduate group, the types of programs and activities held for graduate students, membership and attendance, and their budget/finances. 

​Lastly, Tricia Berry (Women in Engineering Program Director at the University of Texas at Austin) gave an administrator’s perspective on how to effectively engage with Faculty and University Administration to improve the quality and content of graduate student professional development programs.