Welcome to Baltimore: My Conference with SWE

After my interview with Honda, I flew back to Wisconsin for the night, and got up the next morning to spend the rest of my week in Baltimore, Maryland, to attend the national Society of Women Engineers conference.

This is my second time attending the conference; last year I attended and landed myself at Nissan, so really I have SWE to thank for my automotive career thus far. These conferences are a good reality check for me. Easily 7,000 women attend, and I like to see what they're like, and what kind of quality engineers other schools are churning out. They may be girls my same age and have life stories just like me, but really, they're my competition come December when I graduate and look for jobs. Grrrr, bring it on!

It was way, way, WAY too much estrogen for the five or so days I was there, but it was still a much needed get-away-from-it-all with my fellow Milwaukee study buddies. :) I attended a few seminars, meetings, and the all-famous career fair.

At the career fair I made a beeline for the Nissan stand to pay my respects. I had such huge butterflies in my stomach to see who from Nissan would be at the booth. I was sooooo curious to see if anyone from Mississippi would have been there, so I could throw my arms around them in a huge hug and sit and talk about how things were going. I probably would have started crying if it were a few select buddies of mine from Mississippi, because I miss them so much and would love to just have lunch with them one more time if I could. My summer there really meant a lot to me. I learned so much, and I remain so thankful for the folks that took me in as a part of their family for a few months.

Anyway, there were no Mississippi folks, just two associates from Nissan's Detroit branch...so, they were two new Nissan people to meet! Sonja and I walked up to the booth - a quick background story for you is that I landed Sonja a phone interview with them after I interned for the summer, and they fell in love with her as much as they were pleased with me. So, Nissan's wish has been to acquire both of us girls.

We approached the booth and introduced ourselves. It turned out that as soon as the associates heard our names, they shook hands and said, "Ooooooh, so YOU are the two girls! Golly Mississippi talks about your two names all the time, it's nice to finally meet the person to match them!" It was humbling, but pleasant to learn Nissan hadn't forgotten. :)

I then inadvertently had the chance to prove myself again to Nissan, because the stand had a 350Z parked there as a show-scheme, and one of the associates accidentally shut the hatchback on the sports car.


Normally, this wouldn't be any big gig. However, due to safety hazards and avoiding electricity having a mind of its own, the car's battery had to be removed to be parked inside a building, and on carpeting. Therefore, all circuitry was lost to use the key fob we've all come to love and abuse. It also kept the finger-sensor on the switch by the license plate from popping the hatch right back open. They felt stranded, but needed to get that hatchback open again since they were storing door prizes in the storage area there.

I dropped my portfolio baggie thing and started climbing around. Who cares if I was in my pressed business suit and heels? I wanted to figure this puppy out. And I did. I found the manual release switch and popped 'er right back open. The Nissan folks thanked me up and down, impressed with my devotion and engineering problem-solving skills. (It was really nothing - I just opened up the owner's manual to find where it was, for goodness sake!) :)

I got a diecast toy model of the Z out of the whole deal, though. Cha-ching!

Beyond that, I visited Honda's booth and thanked them for interviewing me just two days before - even though the associates working there did not know of the associates I worked with in Ohio. I walked up and down aisles of this banquet hall, looking at company stands and chatting with any one that seemed interesting. I stopped by Whirlpool's booth to see what engineering could do for their company, and ended up getting myself an on-the-spot interview with them for their Manufacturing Leadership Engineering Development Program. It was cool, although they asked three notably interesting/tricky questions that I must attest I've NEVER encountered in all my interviewing experience. I haven't heard back from them [yet], but as a thank you for interviewing, they gave me a free box of those bendy Kitchen Aid silicone cooking supply things! RED too! They look so fun, I can't wait to try them.

Outside of the business of attending the conference, it was nice to get out and explore the city. Side story: I want to insert that I am not at all impressed with the students that Johns Hopkins University produces - at least the few I met while visiting Baltimore, where this Ivy League university is.

On the closing day of the conference all 7,000 girls met in a banquet hall to have a luncheon deal. The girls weren't allowed to sit at a table with people from their same school; it was a forced mix-and-mingle event. By probability, I still ended up with a friend of mine from UWM at my table. Joining us were two girls from a university in Florida, a girl from Puerto Rico, an employee from Northrup Grumman, some Barbie girl from a university in Delaware.....and a mousy girl from Johns Hopkins.

Throughout the whole luncheon, this Hopkins girl was amiss. I was not impressed with her social skills and basic interacting skills. In the middle of the guest speaker delivering their speech, this girl's cell phone rang at our table and she picked it up without even looking up off of her lunch plate, to sit and gab. When she wasn't hunkered down and eating, she had her head turned up in the air, no exaggeration. And she wouldn't even sit at the table; she felt compelled to sit with her legs turned out to the side of the table, demonstrating to me that she was waiting to break free at any time.

Turns out that after lunch, one of my UWM friends went to the bathroom and overheard the Hopkins girl in the stall next to her, complaining that "lunch was good, although there were these two girls from UW-Milwaukee at my table and the one girl just would NOT SHUT UP!"

Yeah.........that 'one girl' is me. :)

I know I talk a lot, and I talk fast....but this is the first time that it's made it back to me that it was too much. Sorry. It was supposed to be an interactive lunch, with team-building. I was just doing my part to build.

I digress. We got out to see the city, that's where this post was going to. 10 of us came to the conference from UWM, so at night we all walked the Inner Harbor at Baltimore, I made my pilgrimage to the Hard Rock Cafe to get my Baltimore t-shirt to add to my collection, and we feasted on some east-coast seafood. Yesss!

Here are some pictures, and of course you can click on the picture itself for a larger viewing size:

The Baltimore Inner Harbor


Boardwalk.


Baltimore skyline!


Mission accomplished: acquiring my Baltimore Hard Rock Cafe shirt for my HRC t-shirt stash I collect.


The local Best Buy for my former Best Buy boys (Chris and Joe). Muahahaha.

Some rather interesting science museum you could look into at night.


Baltimore during the day.


Inner Harbor during the day.


It doesn't matter what city you put 'em in....what are girls gonna do?! Go shopping!!! :)


Cool shot, looking up through the roof of the shopping center into the skyscraper next door.


My first time eating crab legs and what a way to go! Alaskan King Crab legs, they were HUGE, but succulent.


Still my favorite seafood dish: shrimp scampii.


All 10 of us at the SWE Conference, dressed up for a night out for fancy seafood!! We all had so much fun together.


Photo of all graduating seniors - there's so many of us this semester! From left to right: Natalie, myself, Sonja, Niki, and Elizabeth.

ROOMMATE PICTURE! Finally! After all that Heidi and I have been through and been friends for, we finally get a picture together. :) Everyone, meet my roommate! We met each other our freshman year, in our very first engineering class ever. It all started with her asking why I carried a wedge eraser around with my pencil. We've taken classes together ever since, hosted study sessions for classes, and now we work together in the dean's office and live together. It's great, this girl has always been there for me, especially during my sophomore year when I was hitting my low spot. She's so nice to come home to, truthfully. Thank you, Heidi!!!