Society of Women Engineers
Board Member Application 2008-2009
APPLICATION DEADLINE: Friday, April 18, 2008 at 11:59pm
Candidate Forum: Thursday, April 24, 2008 at 7pm
Please direct all questions to the Society of Women Engineers ()
Name: Rebecca Zhou
Please number the positions you are applying for in the order you would like them, with ‘1’ being your first choice. You may choose a maximum of three positions. [Descriptions attached]
Officers / Committee Heads___ President / _1_ Corporate Dinner
___ VP of Development / ___ Educational Outreach
___ VP of Activities and Communications / ___ Webmistress
___ Treasurer
___ Secretary
Year of Graduation: 2010
Major: Bioengineering
Email Address:
Phone:
Please answer all of the following questions.
1. What activities have you participated in since you joined SWE? (Check all that are relevant)
Social Activities / Outreach / Study Breaks / High School Shadowing Day
Get to know SWE S'more / Poster Presentation Competition
Mentoring Program / Girls in Technology Day
Take Your Child to Work Day
Development Activities
SIG Tour / Other (Please list):
/ Corporate Dinner
2. Please describe an experience wherein you exhibited leadership and initiative.
I feel that as the Upper Quad Committee chair for spring fling this past year has been a great leadership experience. I was required to be highly organized and on top of things. It required me to get the appropriate paper work in as the school administration has many requirements. It also required me to deal with a variety of people with certain requests and demands that had to be met. I feel that as the committee chair, I had to make executive decisions, especially on the day of fling when hundreds of problems arose that were not foreseen.
3. Why did you join SWE and why do you think you are a good candidate for the position you are applying for (including both interests and skills)?
I’ve been on the SWE listserv for a while now and I would really like to get more involved and get to know everyone better. I joined SWE because I was looking for an engineering club that had people with similar interests and one in which I could make new friends. I am interested in running for corporate dinner committee chair because I went to it this past year and was really impressed by the event. It was a nice opportunity for engineers to know more about corporate businesses and possible career options after college. Thus, I would really like to help plan the corporate dinner because I had such a great experience, I’d like to help make the event better for the coming year. I feel I’ve had a lot of experience in event planning. I was a committee chair for spring fling this year and it involved contacting businesses, vendors, and student groups, as well as organizing and setting up an event on such a large scale. I also have leadership experience as I am on the board of eMED and we hold regular events throughout the semester and therefore, I am knowledgeable about holding events for the engineering school and the administrative process.
4. What other activities are you involved with at Penn and what are their corresponding time commitments?
At Penn, I’m also involved in:
- eMED – less than 1 hour a week
- SPEC spring fling – 1 hour a week with more time the weeks leading up to spring fling in April
- Alpha Phi Omega – about 2 hours a week
5. One of our goals has always been to increase the number of active members in the organization. What ideas do you have to accomplish our goal? In which other areas would you like to see SWE improve to better serve the students/school? How?
I feel one way to increase the number of active members in the organization is to involve more people in the planning process of the events throughout the year. Many people may not want to attend a GBM every two weeks; however, if they are responsible for a small part of the event, they will feel more involved in SWE as a whole and then go the event that they have contributed to. I feel that SWE has great programs in place for the engineering school as well as students in our local high schools and communities. An area of improvement could be the mentoring program where you could pair up underclassmen and upperclassmen. I feel that it would have been helpful for me as a freshman. Possible ideas could include luncheons/dinners with your mentor or games night for mentor/mentee teams.
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