You go girl!

I was really excited to find out that there's a new group starting on campus that's going to bring 60 or so girls to campus each week and teach them about engineering. I love working with kids and explaining why science is SO AWESOME. The group is going to run every Saturday this semester as a club for girls who want to learn more about engineering. Since it's a club, there's less pressure to always be doing an activity, we can kick back sometimes, have a lot of one-on-one interaction with the kids, and get to know them better than if it was set up as a camp or a seminar or something. There's also a lot more room for trial and error, ask the girls what they enjoy, what they want to see more of, and what isn't really catching their interest.

The volunteers are SO GREAT! I can't believe how smoothly our preparations have gone so far and how friendly everyone is. Everyone is super passionate, giving up every Saturday of your semester is no tiny feat. Not just that but you have to be "on" the whole time the kids are there, you can't really just abandon everyone and go off somewhere to chill for a bit, and it's not very encouraging to the girls if you start complaining about your courses/homework/whatever.

It's really neat to work with a group of people from all the different disciplines of engineering that we have here. Each week we're going to focus on a different field of engineering, and we're already starting to flesh out possible activities, tours, and guest speakers. There are so many neat things to learn here that you might never find out about if nobody told you! I hope we can pass on our passions to the girls and to the other volunteers.