So far, all my classes have been going well considering the new mostly-online class schedule. I have enjoyed the flexibility which has accompanied this year’s online-format. Deadlines are known ahead of time and I can fit my personal and work schedule to my class schedule, particularly the large workload it encompasses this semester. I have found it challenging on some days to stay involved and motivated with my classes though. Not having the personal and social aspect to my classes has left me desiring the environment which we all experience when actually in the classroom; to me it makes working with my peers and engaging with them easier and more effective than the online-format. Not to mention the online format does not allow for easy connection (on a social basis) with the professors, especially for someone new to UNM like I am with no prior acquaintances with the teaching staff. I do look forward to the day where classes can return to a more on-campus based format. But for now, I will keep pushing and working my way through this semester. Does anyone have suggestions on how they’ve found a way to engage better and more personally with their peers and professors during this semester’s online-format? I’d love to increase that side of my academic experience this semester.

​Alexandra Schoeller

With events and programs getting canceled, trying to manage the COVID job search landscape, and new opportunities arising, my summer was a wild ride. I had an internship program that canceled on me, failed the job search, took two classes, and ended up landing a small internship at the end. What started as a dismal summer ended up being a productive one.

Last spring, I enrolled in the Facebook Career Connections Fellowship program that trained me on social media and digital marketing skills and would match me with local businesses in Albuquerque for an internship. The program consisted of a summit, four-week training, an interview process, and a final matching. I didn’t know much about internships at the time, so I thought this would be a good program to train me and get me a local internship for the summer. I had attended the summit and gone through the four-week training and felt pretty good about my chances of getting an internship.

Two weeks before the end of the semester, I was notified that I wouldn’t move on to the interview process because of complications with COVID-19. At this point, I had two weeks to find another internship or a summer job before the spring semester ended and my summer began. And so began my frantic search for a job or internship. I spent two weeks sending in dozens of applications. I received three interviews, one call back, and zero offers.

As the semester rolled to a stop and my summer began, I had landed a few interviews, but the businesses didn’t offer part-time work, which I would need because I signed up for a couple of summer classes. I was extremely disheartened that I couldn’t even get a temporary part-time job, but understood that the pandemic has significantly impacted the number of jobs available. I decided to move on with my summer and instead focus my efforts on summer classes and personal projects.

I took a 300-level statistics class that helped me move forward in my degree and an interview prep workshop that helped me prepare for technical interviews. Both classes went well, and I am really glad I took the time to take them. To make the most out of my summer, I decided to work on some personal projects.

Let me tell you, doing personal projects is hard.
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I spent more time trying to find an idea and plan out a way I can do it within a summer with my abilities than actually doing the projects. I got stuck and couldn’t find help on one of them. The other two are partially done.

Hiking with a friend back home

Side note: exercising during a pandemic is DIFFICULT!! It was hard for me to find the motivation to go outside and run a little or try to do workouts at home. Fortunately, cases were low in Montana (where I spent my summer) so my pool opened June 1 and I was able to swim once a day for two months of my summer. Props to all you people who did some sort of exercise or self-care over the summer.

​In the middle of June, I got a message from the Career Connections program (yeah remember them from the spring?). They didn’t have paid opportunities anymore, but they had a few businesses that were looking for interns who still wanted experience. I was already set on a good steady rhythm for the summer and didn’t really want this to mess things up more…. But I decided to give it a shot.

Five interviews later, I got matched with a business that runs STEM camps for kids. They were extremely understanding of my commitments and were willing give me flexible hours, and they were excited that I was in SWE (you should definitely join SWE if you haven’t already!).

My daily schedule during the latter half of my summer looked something like this:

5:00 am: Wake up
5:30-7:30 am: Swim
7:30-8:30 am: Breakfast and sit outside in the nice weather
9:00 am: Nap (yes I took naps at 9 in the morning)
10:00 am: Study Japanese (or at least try to)
10:30-11:30 am: Statistics lecture over Zoom
11:30-12:30 pm: Homework
12:30-1:30 pm: Lunch
1:30-3:30 pm: Internship work
3:30-6:00 pm: SWE work or Projects
6:00-7:00 pm: Dinner
7:00-9:00 pm: Homework or Projects
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My days were packed and the first month of summer was full of stress and worry, but it ended up being a productive summer. I’m thankful for all the opportunities that were given out to me during a stressful time. There were many things I wasn’t happy about, but I’m grateful to have a home to go to and thankful for the support that I had.

This summer was…strange. I have a feeling we can all agree on that, no matter what we were up to! As the opportunities I had been intending to participate in started to fall through, I grew more and more anxious that I wouldn’t find work at all. Then a fateful email came in one day, and I happened to be staring at my phone right as it did. It was a local engineering company searching for interns and I emailed a resume in response in all of about five minutes, unconcerned with the type of work I would do at this point. In a day or two, I had done an interview over the phone and triumphantly informed my parents that they wouldn’t be able to put me to work in the yard all summer because I was a workin’ gal now!

The company was quite a wonderful company to work for, and I am incredibly grateful for the learning experience I got from them. I had decided to work from home because, although the workplace was open and near my house (and I had my own office so I would be able to socially distance), my entire team was at home as well. I figured, why sit in a little office by myself when I could just sit at home and have my puppies, kitchen full of food, and all the other comforts of home with me while I work? Unfortunately, there were a few things that I did not realize, but that I would come to learn very quickly.

For one, comforts of home also means distractions of home as well. It was pretty easy to accidentally while away an hour “quickly” doing the laundry, making lunch, or taking a break to read outside, especially when it was absolutely beautiful weather outdoors. On top of that, I came to discover that I cannot stand sitting inside behind a computer coding for eight hours a day. Whoops. That was exactly what I had signed up for. Not to mention, I took a rather difficult online summer class, so after work, it was time to spend a few more hours on the computer studying. Ha! My brain was absolutely not a fan of that.

As the summer went on, I tried my best to squeeze in exercise into each day—always very important—but it just wasn’t enough to balance all of that time indoors. I also tried to maintain a positive attitude because there were so many individuals who were unable to work and because we were all together facing a very tough situation, not just me. But it certainly wasn’t always easy.

​Now, you might be thinking, Uh, news flash, most (computer) engineers have to sit inside all day, whether there is a pandemic or not… and to that I’d say you are absolutely correct and I am now scrambling to try and find a way to still do the work I am passionate about whilst somehow being outside… It is a process, as I am sure it is for everyone, and always a hard lesson when you realize that simply enjoying something isn’t quite enough. It might seem great to design video games, for example, but are you able to stare at a computer screen for 40+ hours a week? Sometimes I think that maybe I should just completely switch it up and become a zookeeper or forest ranger or something. But, before I go that far, I am working to explore all of the opportunities out there.

A few things that really helped me keep my peace of mind, in the summer, and now as we all learn to navigate “Zoom University”, were hobbies such as roller skating, hiking on the weekends, running outside with my dogs, and yard work (believe it or not, despite what I said before, I actually really enjoy moving dirt and mowing lawns!). Essentially, I partook in anything that would get me outside in a safe, socially distanced way. Some other things I did that didn’t require me to leave the house included journaling, reading, learning something new (more coding languages and baking!), and practicing time away from electronics. I am very thankful for the opportunities I had this summer and I hope that everyone was able to relax and learn during their summers as well, whether that was through an internship, a new hobby, or just enjoying some slower times with family! Now, I aim to find the positive and appreciate this fall semester as much as possible, though it is a challenge for me personally, and I am sure for many others. No matter what, it is always a learning experience and a good adventure!

The pictures include my two [home] office buddies, Shelby (the fluffier one) and Lincoln, a very fun hike, and an out-of-office buddy, Danzereno. (:

We all know that the COVID-19 pandemic has drastically changed our lifestyle and has impacted our communities on both the small and large scale. Everyone hopes that all this will be over soon so that we can get back to our old lives, but so far we do not know how long this will last. Some people, myself included, packed a week’s worth of items for spring break to go home, and then were told to not return to campus. Here are some ways I have been adjusting my life back home after leaving most of my clothes, friends, and school environment back in Albuquerque.

Two of the most important things I have discovered since transitioning to taking classes online while at home is setting boundaries and study spaces. I am currently at home with my parents, and they always want to know when I can go on a road trip or what I have to do each day (they don’t quite understand yet that moving classes online is actually giving me more work to do). I tell them when my scheduled Zoom classes and meetings are so that they can put it on a calendar and I tell them whenever I am about to start an impromptu study session with my classmates. That way they know not to disturb me when I am busy with my classes and know the times of day I am open to eat meals with them. I also have two study spaces set up. The desk I have in my room I use for Zoom meetings and for times when I want to be alone when I do schoolwork. The other is a desk set up in the living room, so that 1. my parents don’t get mad at me for being in my room all day and 2. my parents’ presence nearby keeps me accountable and off my phone. Having two study spaces in my house lets me change study environments when I need to when there is no Zimmerman library for me to go to.

Social distancing does not mean you need to isolate yourself inside your house all the time. We should all try to go outside for a little bit at least once a day. As part of an athletic team at UNM, it’s difficult for me to replicate workouts at home because of facility closures and lack of equipment. Although I am unable to train as much as I had when I was on campus, I am able to work on bodyweight exercises and core with a few items I already have at home (yoga mat, stationary bike, water bottles for weights). I am also fortunate to be able to run outside to work on my running endurance, get some sun, and explore my neighborhood. Because it’s still snowing in Montana (where I am right now), I’ve had to move my workouts inside or in the afternoon when it’s warmer, but have been finding ways to move my body and stay active.

Although I am very sad that I am not around my classmates and friends on campus and that many events have been canceled, I am using this extra time for myself to focus on myself and reflect on my goals. I am using this time to learn my class materials more thoroughly, think about possible careers I can go into, and make plans for how to get there. I am also spending time thinking about the kinds of personal projects I’d like to start on once we get into summer. Always connect with your friends over Zoom, Facetime, or social media, but also use this extra time alone to focus on self care and what you want to get out of these strange times. I hope you are doing well and that this gives you some ideas for adjusting to life back home.

​Best, Mari Aoki

Needless to say the terrible chain of events that have unfolded over the last couple weeks have been very difficult for all of us; and, unfortunately, many health professionals say this situation will get worse before it gets better. We are no longer able to do normal daily activities such as meet up with our friends, go to the gym, study in Zimmerman or do any of the other fun things we would routinely have the option to go do. However, life doesn’t have to be completely miserable and totally gloomy!

While adjusting to the relatively new concept of social distancing, I’ve been trying to focus on the positives during this quarantine time (as hard as it may be). We are all used to seemingly going a thousand miles per second throughout our busy days from commitment to commitment. This way of actively living makes this new time of social distancing and isolation very strange. But I think slowing down and focusing on living in the moment gives us a great opportunity to truly rest and find joy in the little things in our lives. Like maybe becoming a more balanced person!

​I have recently been finding time for things that would have normally been put on the back burner in my busy schedule. This includes, daily walks with my family, painting, board games, cooking, facetime my grandparents, working out in our spruced up home gym, cleaning my room, etcetera. I have been enjoying the opportunity to be intentional in a lot of my relationships with friends/family. Here are a few pictures from my past week:

I hope you are all settling into the terror of online classes and maybe taking up a new hobby while we’re tied to our houses. Remember that social distancing does not mean social isolation and that your voice matters during this difficult time. If anyone needs someone to talk to, I am always available at (505)249-7380, as well as your other SWE-sters who would love to talk with you! I look forward to virtually hanging out with all of you during our Zoom SWE meetings.

Here are a few resources for you to check out during your spare time:
1) greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/six_daily_questions_to_ask_yourself_in_quarantine
​2) www.readersdigest.ca/home-garden/cleaning/spring-cleaning-health-benefits/
3) www.idealist.org/en/careers/help-others-coronavirus

My best,
Haley Chavez

The COVID-19 pandemic is an intense and rapidly-progressing storm that is impacting all of our lives. I am fortunate that the magnitude of its impact on my life is relatively small; the only adjustment I need to make is to socially distance. My classes are online and I am now spending much more time than I normally would indoors by myself.

Since many of the things I would normally spend my time on (my internship, upcoming SWE events, and volleyball) are cancelled, I have time to focus on things that I otherwise wouldn’t. My goal for this time is to stay home and focus on self-reflection and self-care. I hope to take care of myself and my space in ways that my busy schedule does not normally allow.
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One way I am doing this is through reflective art. This endeavor is almost fully inspired by Mari Andrew, an amazing author and artist. She runs an Instagram account where she posts her self-reflective art (@bymariandrew, check it out!). She also teaches a class on Skillshare which walks you through different prompts that encourage self-reflection.
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I have found this activity to be fun, calming, and rewarding. Here are some of the art pieces I have made so far (as you can see, I really enjoy pie charts):

I would highly recommend trying this out for yourself! You can simply check out her Instagram to get inspired, or you can get a free trial of Skillshare (Google “Skillshare 2 month free trial”) and take the class. This is a fun activity to do alone or with a group over Zoom!

I hope this inspired you to take some time for yourself during this difficult and stressful period.
​
Best,
Emily

The Hackathon:
On February 21st-23rd, the University of New Mexico (UNM) Health Science Center hosted the second annual Health Hackathon. This event is an opportunity for a diverse set of inventors to come together and use their skills to develop innovative solutions to problems in the healthcare sector.

We are all Chemical Engineering students at UNM; Tina is a freshman in the program and Christina and Emily are both juniors. We decided to sign up for this event because we wanted to use our engineering skills to develop real solutions to important problems.

The first night of the Hackathon was spent choosing teams. We chose to join Tye Martin’s team; Tye is a post-doc student in the Biomedical Engineering department who wanted to develop a solution to the problems wheelchair users face when it comes to elevator access. By the end of the night our team consisted of eight members; three undergraduate chemical engineering students (us), two undergraduate computer science students, one post-doc (Tye), one post-bacc linguistics student, one UNM HSC staff member, and one UNM professor.
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The next day we worked from 7:30 AM to 9:30 PM to conduct market research, develop branding, and rapidly prototype our solutions. This included surveying wheel-chair users, interviewing firefighters, coding apps, 3-D printing, and manipulating unconventional materials. See the photos below!

The final day was spent making final adjustments and then pitching our ideas! It was great to listen to the other team’s pitches. Ultimately, our team did not win the Hackathon, though we are proud of the solution we pitched. For more information, check out the local news coverage of the event (www.koat.com/article/health-hackathon-winning-teams-earn-grant-money/31123878).

Reflections:
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Tina: I have never done something like that before. The health Hackathon was relaxed but so intense. There was so much food, like a 24 hour buffet. There were materials and 3D printers everywhere. I think my favorite part was meeting people. I was probably the youngest of my group and it was so cool to meet people who were older and more experienced than me. I originally thought that there would only be students doing this but there were professors, health professionals, and more. It takes bravery to first go up there and pitch your idea, and trying to choose a team to go on was hard because everyone’s ideas were so good. The staff who made this possible was also so kind and so pumped to work with you. I enjoyed working with my team and being able to become their friends. It was amazing to see the amount of dedication people had to what they were doing. To my teammates who made the app and robot in 24 hours, wow! I am so happy I decided to be part of the health Hackathon because it made me push myself so see how I can help. I am also glad to have met everyone.

Christina: The health hackathon was such an amazing and rewarding experience. Going into this event, I was nervous and didn’t know what to expect. Everybody was super friendly and welcoming. Once we were in our teams, we got to work. I got to exercise my experience with design thinking. It was really awesome getting to see an idea become a prototype of a product in just one weekend. I may be a little biased, but our group was so amazing. Despite everybody’s different backgrounds, we worked together very well and were able to produce an amazing design. Through the health hackathon, I got to meet great people, see what a pitch competition was like and put my knowledge of engineering thus far to good use. We all had such a fun weekend and I look forward to next year’s health hackathon!

Emily: My favorite thing about this event was getting to use my skills to make a difference. Most of my experience in Chemical Engineering is research based, and it is generally hard to see the direct impact you are making when you are running experiments in a lab. At the hackathon I was introduced to rapid prototyping and design thinking. I also learned so much about how to conduct market research and how to use this to inform the iterations of your prototype.
Overall, I would 10/10 recommend participating in a hackathon. You learn new skills, meet new people, and gain a new perspective on your purpose as an engineer/coder/creator/etc.

We hope this inspired you to participate in a hackathon!
– Tina, Christina, and Emily

A few weekends ago I had the opportunity to be a group leader for the annual Society of Women Engineers (SWE) Art of Science event. It was the third year of putting on the event that started right here at UNM and it was better than ever!

​Girl Scout Collaboration

SWE hosts the outreach event with the Girl Scouts of New Mexico trails. SWE, School of Engineering and other engineering student organization volunteers help with event set-up, take-down, running interactive, STEM activities for the girls. It is the second largest STEM event for the Girl Scouts of New Mexico trails, with around 80 attendees.

Engineering Activities

This year Hispanic Engineering and Science Organization (HESO) and American Nuclear Society (ANS) helped SWE in putting on activities for the girls. SWE implemented an outreach activity that some of us participated in at the national conference in Anaheim last year. The outreach chairs assembled escape room backpacks that used a skill from each engineering discipline to solve the problem: delivering a cure to the public after a zombie apocalypse. This was not only an activity our members enjoyed at the conference but one of the girl scouts’ favorite activities.

​HESO taught the girls about electronics through play dough circuits and LED robots while ANS had many stations where the girls learned about alpha, beta, and gamma radiation. When the girls weren’t working with a student org, they were either decorating their own lab coats or talking to local professionals during speed mentoring.

Volunteers and Sponsors

SWE was lucky enough to have sponsors like Sandia National Laboratories, Honeywell, and Bohannan Huston that helped provide supplies for the activities and lunch for the girls. The event took a whole Saturday with some volunteers working up to ten hours to really make this whole thing happen.

My Role

While I stayed for the whole event, I had a pretty cool job. I lead the girls to and from activities. I had about 27 girls in my group with 3 parent volunteers. I got to know the girl scouts and even got to participate in some of the activities. To prepare for the role I had to get registered as a Girl Scout volunteer and get a background check. I really enjoyed helping out and being a part of one of the largest events SWE UNM puts on.

– Anna

The weekend after the second week of school I boarded a plane to San Diego for the WE Local 2020 Society of Women Engineers Conference. I will not lie; it was challenging to pick up and leave for three days when I was barely into the semester, but it turned out to be so much fun and even a little relaxing.

Plane Ride

Some of the best parts of the flight were that the flight was not delayed, Sunport TSA barely had a line, and after watching the sunset out the gate window listening to my Physics III lecture on the wave equation, I boarded a direct flight from ABQ to San Diego. We shared a flight with the UNM swim team who was heading to Reno, Nevada.

Airbnb

There were seven other girls that got to go to the conference too. We stepped off the plane, got into an Uber, and headed to our Airbnb. The instructions for the place, though, were sent to the wrong place so we spent a good hour trying to figure out how to open the place. (It felt like a “How many engineers does it take to open a door?” situation.) Once we got in, we set up the beds and got ready for the conference the next day.

Conference Day 1

We woke up early Friday morning to walk about twenty minutes to the conference center to register and listen to the keynote speaker while eating a very nice continental breakfast. The keynote was Bhavya Mehta. She is a product development engineer at BD and was just a few years older than us. It was cool learning from her because she was in our spot, an undergraduate student studying to be an engineer, not too long ago.

We all headed to the graduate poster competition which was fun to listen to. The talks were no longer than 10 minutes and most were on thesis topics. I headed to a resume workshop with General Atomics and scored great feedback and a perfect grocery bag. I took a homework break and met back up with the other SWE members to listen to lightning talks. One of my favorites was about doing yoga in the workplace.

We ate lunch and listened to the State of the SWE speech. The rest of the day was spent listening to other breakout sessions. One of the standout sessions for me was a panel on moving whether it be for school or work. We headed back to Airbnb after the talks. On the way back, we passed right next to the Padres’ stadium and a cute matcha place. Friday night was also our club dinner night and we all headed to a really delicious Greek place.

Conference Day 2

Day two went about the same as day one. We started the day with a really good breakfast again. The activity for the morning was a networking hour where we got to know a nanotechnology engineer. We went to listen to talks on data mining, leadership and LinkedIn, which all were super eye opening. Lunch was provided during the keynote Q&A session. For this keynote they asked a high school student and her mother to talk about how they have founded a SWE club and participated in a SWE Next competition in their local community. After lunch, we took a short beach front walk and took advantage of the beautiful weather in San Diego. We kept attending talks until 5:00 pm. We headed back to Airbnb, went to this super good California burrito place, and got ready for the flight back to ABQ.

Takeaways

I would say this was one of my favorite conferences I have gone to. It was much smaller than the national conference, but I still got to listen to great talks and participate in a career fair. It was much easier to catch speakers walking around and talk to them and make more connections. The food provided at the conference center was so good which doesn’t seem like a huge factor, but the meals totally kept me on site (since I normally go out to grab a bite) to listen to more talks and saved me a lot of money. I liked that we only took eight members and we all got to know each other super well by attending talks and going out to dinner all together.

​Even though I missed school, it was nice to go somewhere that wasn’t ABQ and meet awesome professionals. I learned way more than I thought and I came back way more motivated than I thought.

I hope you all have found a little motivation as were still in the early weeks of the semester!

Check out a vlog of this experience here: http://thepack.unm.edu/anna-j/swe-we-local-conference-san-diego/#.XlAsRGhKhPY
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-Anna

 Inspired. If I had to choose one word to describe my experience at WE19, that would be it. My experience at WE19 in Anaheim, CA was very impactful and I came out of it with a new mindset on my studies and identity. Being surrounded by female engineers from UNM and from around the nation really made me feel like I was part of something bigger: the movement to bring more women into engineering.

This is my first year in SWE and my first conference, so I came in with very few expectations and a drive to participate in everything I possibly could. When I first arrived at WE19, I was very intimidated. Everybody around me was dressed professionally and looked like very, very smart people. At first I didn’t feel like I fit in, but as the conference went on, I realized that there were many people who, like me, were at their very first conference and others had felt the same way during their first conference. I gained more confidence talking to people, and it helped me attend workshops and presentations without any hesitation. Once I found out that there were people like me at WE19, I felt more like the people I saw as well and it created a very inclusive and supportive environment for engineers to explore possibilities in their field.
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The workshops and presentations offered at the conference covered a wide variety of topics, from mansplaining, the effects of saying “sorry” too often, making your phone into a fitness tracker, to engineering your wardrobe for success. They were targeted towards female engineers and all STEM professionals as well. Each talk I attended was engaging and fun. I took something away from each presentation to keep in mind for the future. These talks made me think, “Wow, that’s interesting! I need to make a note of that for later”, “I’ll need to do that for my next job search,” and “I believe I can get to where that person is too.” The presentations and speakers supported engineers at all levels and I feel everyone was influenced in one way or another.

Another wonderful experience of WE19 was rooming with other engineers. Most of my usual friends aren’t engineers, so it was a change hanging out with students in similar areas of study. They were funny, kind, enthusiastic, and extremely supportive. My WE19 experience would not have been as much fun without them. Knowing that these young women are studying at the same university as I am made me proud to be part of the UNM School of Engineering and motivated me to succeed in tough courses. They helped me see that I can study difficult subjects and still thrive. Thank you, Angela, Kayli, Mary, and Katherine, for showing me how amazing intelligent engineers can be.

Recently I had been feeling more and more doubt about whether I am smart enough to even continue majoring in Computer Science (Imposter Syndrome, anyone?). But the women I heard and saw at WE19 motivated me to continue pushing through. I want to pursue my degree not only to be one of the women who enter into that field but also to inspire others to do the same. The conference made me realize how much of an impact female engineers, including myself, can have on society and
on other people.

It was a great honor to attend WE19 and I hope to be able to attend WE20 next year. I witnessed many present and future successful engineers that inspired me to study hard and reach for my dreams. I hope everyone else who attended came out a new person as well, as engineers who live, learn, and lead.
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Mari A.