09-13/07/2018

Week One:

The introductory week was quite insightful. It was full of learning - learning my comrades' names, learning WHMIS, learning Solidworks. In my case, I also had to learn university-level physics (if you can call my attempts at memorizing definitions learning). We had a memorable field trip to Aspin Kemp & Associates (AKA), most memorable moments being the maroon van, about which we kept joking for the next two days, and standing in the hot sun. Don't get me wrong - all female engineers were very nice and smart and inspiring. I like to think that male engineers were also very nice and smart and inspiring, but we never really got the chance to talk to them. Meeting my mentor, Nicholas Krouglicof, was fairly exciting: I knew nothing about physics, he was trying to explain everything to me, I didn`t understand anyway. You know, all that is defined as exciting.

23-27/07/2018

Week Three:

Third week was heavy on project working, and while I have been working hard I still managed to get stuck. Goodie. Aside from fondling with programming sensors, our group had a nice lunch with a group of engineers, who told us about their experience in the field, and we had a photoshoot. We also had a chance to engage in a hands-on engineering competition-like activity, where we had to make a windmill which could turn kinetic energy of the wind into mechanical energy with enough torque to lift a 3-gram weight (an average teabag). We worked in a groups of 3-4 people, one ProGRES member per group, and other members were Japanese students. My team had the best looking windmill, and this achievement I gloated about for the next hour (really appreciate the fact that other girls were nice enough not to punch me).

06-09/08/2018

Week Five:

This is the last week of the program. I found it quite frustrating how much outings we had, because some of us were still not finished with our projects (including me), and we weren't provided a lot of time to work on them. We went to Maritime Electric, to Sandy Rae Farms, and had a MATLAB introduction. Although I have to admit, the trips were very good and educational, and introduction to MATLAB was very entertaining. Friday, Aug 10, we have our final presentations, where we show our process and explain what our projects are and what is the importance of said projects!

Julie Payette

Julie Payette is a very educated woman with many achievements. Information about her education, special honors, and honorary degrees takes up about one third of the article about her. Other two thirds describe her NASA and space flight experience. It is amazing how hard she worked to become one of the most recognized woman in the field of engineering.

Jennifer Sidey-Gibbons

While information about Jennifer`s education and special honors is considerably smaller than Julie Payette`s, her experience and her willingness to interact with the public public do a great job compensating for that. Her aid in getting girls into engineering is greatly valued, and her Q & A section continues to inspire many girls.

Debbie Sterling

In her Tedx Talk, Debbie tells her story of becoming an engineer. She talks about hoe engineering is stereotypes as "for boys" and how she tries to help it change. She is very inspiring. She shares the troubles she went through being a female engineer and troubles of trying to change what toys are labelled as "girly". I believe her project, GoldieBlocks, is a very successful project, and she does a great job of inspiring people to also try to change the world.

"How Women Mentors Make a Difference in Engineering"

The article talks about advantages of female students having female mentors. As I personally never experienced lack of motivation when working with male mentors or a mostly-male classmates, I cannot really relate, but it helps me understand the troubles some experience, and that they can be helped. The article really helped me understand how some girls can suffer because of lack of female inspiration.

"Female peer mentors early in college increase women’s positive academic experiences and retention in engineering"

This article is results of a study, which prove how important female mentor's influence is for female students. The whole article is too big to reflect on in a small paragraph, but it's easy to read on your own as it is broken down into smaller parts.

"Sustainable Development Goals"

The website describes some of the worst problems of the modern world, such as poverty, unequal gender rights, lack of freshwater, etc. It talks about how many people are really affected by such problems, and what is the cause and result of them. It also talks about how they can be solved and what goals should be achieved to help solve the problems. This website is, while sad, is also very inspiring to go and help those in need. The website makes you feel like the problems can be solved and that you can help solve them though engineering. This website helps you see engineering as the noble cause it is, and to see engineering as something you can do to help people.

Abby Wambach

Abby Wambach: Barnard Commencement 2018

In her speech, Abby Wambach talks about how her experience with gender-based discrimination (specifically pink tax) inspired her to talk about how each and every woman should demand equal rights because we deserve it. As she herself said, failures should fuel us to do better, and that's what she did: she didn't have the same rights as men did, so she decided to inspire women all over the world to change that, to be more fierce, to be strong, and to be more progressive. She inspires us, women, to be the salvation of humans, and to never give up. In her speech, she says "Her victory is your victory - celebrate it". That phrase is so great because it's inspiring to be happy for other people, that achievements of one are achievements for all: especially when the achievement is equality for all.