On Friday, November 4th, Dallas SWE had a wonderful opportunity to support the community and participate as panelists at the UTD’s Women in Mechanical Engineering Roundtable! As panelists, we were able to provide valuable insight to future women mechanical engineers by sharing our experiences entering the workforce. It was a fun event allowing us to serve our community and share our perspectives on unique challenges as well as enjoy some great company! Thank you to SWE Outreach Committee Member, Liz Biru, for organizing this event!
Join the Dallas SWE Outreach Team at our February Event at Girls Inc. on February 11, 2023 at 10:15 AM! We will lead middle school and high school students in a hands-on engineering activity and also host a panel to share various engineering career fields. This event will be held at the Girls Inc. of Metropolitan Dallas Center. Please register at the EventBrite by January 27, 2023!
The Dallas SWE Book Club enjoyed brunch at STIRR Addison while discussing Quiet by Susan Cain. The club had a great discussion about introversion versus extroversion and the powers of each personality type. We learned that while culture currently selects for extroverted personalities, introverts are extremely common (30-50% of the population) and have a lot to offer!
Our introverted group members bonded over a common language to discuss their shared experiences (seriously, more than just you has had that experience!). The extroverted group members shared about the world from their perspective, and learned about being more understanding of their introverted counterparts.
The book club discussion ended with members strategizing about how to put their newfound knowledge into practice. Members shared strategies that have worked for them to handle introversion/extroversion and challenging situations effectively. Quiet by Susan Cain was highly recommended by both the introverted and extroverted attendees!
If you would like to join future book club meetings, please watch EventBrite and the Newsletter for announcements! Book notes for past books are available to Dallas SWE members through Book Club Lead, Ashley Johnson.
Congratulations to Dallas SWE’s December Member of the Month, Liz Biru!
Liz’s journey into engineering started as a love for physics and mathematics in high school. With the support and encouragement from her physics teacher, Liz pursued a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from The University of Texas at Dallas. Throughout her academic pursuits, Liz participated actively in various organizations such as SWE, ASME, and NSBE to expand her network of engineering colleagues.
While her senior year proved to be challenging it also provided the opportunity to receive a job offer from Emerson, her team’s corporate sponsor for their senior design project. Liz accepted her first role post-college as a Test and Evaluation Engineer at Emerson. This role allowed the perfect opportunity for the theories of engineering and practicalities of reality to collide which expanded her skills in applying engineering practices successfully in real-world applications. In this role, Liz built strong professional relationships with clients, vendors, and colleagues across the globe to be utilized for better product development. Liz continued her development in various roles at Emerson while exploring and experiencing other aspects of the business such as supply chain, business strategy, and project management. Liz is currently a Product Manager responsible for developing and executing strategies for new products and expanding current products across the business with a focus on maximizing profit and increasing customer satisfaction.
While in college and her professional life, Liz has recognized the lack of women representation and enjoys actively contributing to organizations that aim to change that. SWE provides a great platform to showcase the amazing opportunities that can come from pursuing an engineering career.
Join Ana Gonzalez, VP of Professional Development for a financial workshop we will be reviewing the 50/30/20 Budget Rule and plan your own personal finances at the start of the New Years. Food will be provided.
Register by December 19th to receive a free budget planner.
This event will be on January 5 at 6:30-8 PM. Event location to be announced. Registration closes officially January 4.
On Thursday, November 10th, Dallas SWE hosted a Career Shift Panel at Sonny Bryan’s Smokehouse. Barbara Read was our moderator and the panelists consisted of Shelley Stracener, Zaineb Ahmad, Amanda Alsbrook and Rana Karimi, all past and present Dallas SWE Presidents. The panel began with introductions and a question for all panelist: When did you know it was time for a change? For Amanda, it came down to having a work-life balance, with her traveling all the time it eventually became taxing and needed a better lifestyle. Shelley brough up attending SWE conference and being introduced to other industries, networking at conference is a great way to find your first career job and find like minded women that support each other throughout the years. Zaineb, mentioned burnout being a key factor of her choosing to leave her role, working at a smaller company she had to wear many different hats and it was starting to project outwards to where close friends would advise her it was time for a change, and she deserves and can do better. Rana’s industry chance came through the oil & gas recession at that time her company was going through layoffs and Rana wanted to be prepared and started looking for a new role. While landing the next role everyone agreed the main challenge, they faced was having to prove themselves but like Zaineb mentioned, you now have more transformable skills you’re bringing to the table and do have what it takes to drive change. Rana’s recent role away from engineering brought on the biggest risk in her career path it was a decision that she knew “it would be hard to go back to engineering”, but the opportunity was too good to pass on. Rana was able to define her new role, influence change quicker by reporting to executive team directly, and problem-solving supply chain issues every day. In the case of all our panelists their challenges are not failures, and they have in a better place in their careers.
The panel concluded with Q&A from the attendees, driving the conversation to thoughts around working in a startup company (having more visibility with executive team) vs fortune 500 corporate company (may get lost with in more employees, more politics, but do get involve with ERGs and find advocates that will have your back). Shelley ended with advice on starting a new role which may turn into another panel discussion for us in the near future.
