About 32% of women in technology quit their jobs after one year, citing feelings of isolation in male-dominated work settings. At Trinity, there are a number of organizations for students to meet and uplift women in engineering, computing, science and technology.
“I mean, historically, we are just an underrepresented group in STEM,” Grace Robertson, junior engineering science major and president of the Society of Women Engineers, said. “And since we are a liberal arts university, it’s so important that we are making sure we’re providing those opportunities for women in STEM who need the support.”
According to Robertson, SWE seeks to connect its members with professionals in their field of interest and provide opportunities for career development.
“In the fall, we do a Thanksgiving dinner, which is more of a networking event where we bring in engineering professionals from the San Antonio and Austin area, as well as Trinity alum, so that our members can get connected and start making those, I guess, just advancements into kind of what they want to do after they leave Trinity,” Robertson said.
Trinity University Women in Computing provides similar professional development opportunities to students interested in getting involved. Sandra Gurrola, senior English and computer science double-major and president of TUWIC, shared more on what the club has to offer.
“Our pre-professional events include resume workshops, guest speakers, and we’re having a training on how to use Scratch for game development that relates to our thing called Tech Camp, which is our really big event every year,” Gurrola said. “We have a two-day camp for local middle school students to come work on team-building exercises, leadership skills, and so for that we’re gonna have some craft sessions.”
Gurrola emphasized the impact the club and two-day camp have on the Trinity students and middle schoolers that attend.
“There’s people who I think became friends from this org freshman year and are going forward,” Gurrola said. “Tech camp is great because it’s early exposure we get. We bring those cool girls, give them hopefully a very positive experience about what coding can be.”
Trinity Women in Science and Technology shares the goal of providing community and professional development opportunities to its members. Khushi Kakadia, junior biology major and co-president of TWIST, elaborated on this objective.
“TWIST’s mission statement is to provide a community for women in STEM to interact with each other socially, but also to provide them with opportunities to interact with the greater San Antonio area, so volunteering and then also academic improvement,” Kakadia said.
One way TWIST acts on this mission statement is by connecting upperclassmen with underclassmen to build friendships and share advice.
“We have a mentorship program where an underclassman is paired with an upperclassman and they’re supposed to meet like once or twice a month, depending on availability to talk about school and if they have any questions about academics or things like that,” Kakadia said.
Through providing community and opportunities to support women in STEM careers, these three organizations strive to create safe spaces for inclusivity.
“It’s important to make sure that women in STEM have a place where they feel safe to be themselves, to belong and to interact with other women who might be in their classes, especially in a field that’s predominantly male,” Kakadia said. “It’s important to make sure that we have these safe spaces.”
For anyone who would like to get involved, these three organizations have upcoming events in April that interested students are free to attend.
SWE will have a guest lecture about women in engineering and history on April 17 from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. in CSI 437. TWIST will hold a general meeting on April 24 at 5:30 p.m. in the CSI Cube featuring a slime-making activity. On April 1 at 7 p.m., TUWIC is hosting guest speaker Amber Lewis in CSI 204 to talk about her experience using coding for biotechnology research.
