*Disclosure: This blog does not promote the use of or require the use of Zoom for any SWE meetings. This blog is purely meant to educate our fellow SWEsters on ways to maintain safety when choosing to use Zoom conferencing.* ​

Zoom has quickly become a popular conferencing tool due to it's multi-person and free conferencing properties. It's a great way to connect with SWEsters around the world or within your specific session! Yet, with lemonade, there are always some leftover lemons... and Zoom can pose a threat to the integrity of your SWE meeting. 

Unfortunately, I witnessed "Zoom hacking" happen during an external event associated with my university. Because of the public nature of the event marketing, a non-university member was able to share an elicit video for ~10 seconds before kicked off. Despite the event being 2 hours of phenomenal networking amongst students and local entrepreneurs, that event will forever be remembered as and labelled as "hacked." I don't want the same to occur to our SWEsters!

In our social media policy, Society of Women Engineers defines integrity as "aspiring to the highest level of ethical behavior as evidenced by... dignity in our... professional relationships and responsibilities." Below, GradSWE lists 3 tips on maintaining the integrity in your SWE virtual meetings.

1. Do not post your Zoom Meeting ID to your section's public social media. Consider creating an invitation through an alternative site such as Facebook Events or Eventbrite. After a verified member RSVPs, only then can they get the Zoom Meeting ID.
   
   
2. Create a Meeting-specific password for all attendees to use. Never post this password outside of verified communication with a member.
   
   
3. Assign a secondary meeting host to monitor the Zoom Waiting Room function as well as all screens shared to the Zoom call to ensure no participant is sharing unsolicited content. 
   
   

Have any extra tips? Submit yours to grad-coordinator@swe.org so we can share with the rest of the Graduate SWE Community!

IGTL (International Graduate Team Lead, Pratyasha Mohapatra): Hello Kanika, thank you for taking time to share your experiences with us. So please tell us what degree are you pursuing and your specialization?
KL (Kanika Lamba): Hi Pratyasha. Currently I am pursuing my Ph.D. in Geotechnical engineering at Iowa State University. My research focuses on computational modelling and full scale testing of deep foundations. The application of this research will be in the optimized design of deep foundations in seismic zones, offshore structures, and wind turbines, basically wherever the foundations are subjected to any horizontal forces.
IGTL: Tell us about your prior experiences before pursuing degree abroad:
KL: Before coming to the US, I pursued my undergrad in Civil engineering in India. The courses during the undergraduate studies give a basic introduction to different specialization for example: transportation engineering, structural, water resources, environmental engineering, construction management, and geotechnical engineering to name a few. I am a multitasker and during my undergraduate program, I managed my studies, along with extracurricular activities like becoming placement and training coordinator for civil engineering students,  getting involved in national cadet corps, and participating different national student technical competitions. I pursued my masters in soil mechanics and foundation engineering in India and researched in the area of soil dynamics during this program. After my masters, I worked as a design geotechnical engineer in a multinational company for four years in Mumbai. My job profile included geotechnical risk assessment of project sites, providing recommendations to mitigate geotechnical risks, design of deep foundations. The job helped me to develop my professional skills and also gave me financial stability. At the back of my mind, I had always wanted to go for doctorate studies but wanted to get some practical experience and improve my financial condition. 
IGTL: Why did you choose doing a PhD abroad?
KL: PhD is a long program, you choose a university based on the research facilities available and, more importantly, you look for the professor with research interests similar to yours. My research interests were in soil dynamics, computational modelling and deep foundations. I looked for the universities having research resources related to my interests, read research papers of research groups from these universities and emailed the professors who were actively researching in similar areas as my interests. I chose my current university because it has a fully-dedicated soil dynamics laboratory with state of the art equipment, my major professor was actively researching in the same topic, he had a position open for a doctorate student to work in the area of soil dynamics and deep foundations, and, Ames city had a low-cost of living compared to other places I had applied to. My major professor read my application, and took a skype interview, communication with me via series of emails and then offered a fully-funded Ph.D. position for his research project.   
IGTL: How did you choose this specialization? 
KL: I had actually not given a serious thought about what I would be pursuing after my undergraduate studies. I faced a lot of dilemma about what path to take.   In India, most of the time we take into consideration job security and financial prospects, and family’s opinions when it comes to choosing a career. I received varying opinions, with some advising to go for MBA program as it would secure a high paying job, while some recommended pursuing a job in the IT field. Honestly, very few suggested me to pursue graduate studies in civil engineering. My mentor Professor from my undergraduate university recommended me to go for Master’s in civil engineering based on my skills. He introduced me to graduate students and professors at the National Institute of Technology Surat. I was very fascinated by their on-going research and the labs in geotechnical engineering. Talking to them I realized that there are very few specialists in the field of geotechnical engineering. Hence, I wanted to give it a try by pursuing Masters. I really liked the courses offered from the first semester. I got the opportunity to meet and listen to many practicing geotech professionals, professors and researchers from all over the country through the visiting lecturers and geotechnical conferences held in the institute.  The more I witnessed these experiences, the more my interest deepened in the field. There was so much to this field and so much scope for research. I was sure that I had made the right decision. ​