The reason the Society of Women Engineers is one of the best orgs on campus (not biased at all) is that not only do you make some of your closest friends through our social gatherings (see Caitlin‘s post on our semesterly member’s retreat, the yacht party), but there are TONS of opportunities to gain professional and corporate experience.

Last week SWE had one of our large industry events of the semester, cosponsored by two other Viterbi organizations – the Society of Hispanic and Professional Engineers (SHPE) and National Organization for Business and Engineering (NOBE).

Checking in!

Called Professional Development Night, it was a series of professional development workshops with mock interviews and a dinner to cap it off.  We invited campus representatives from 8 different companies (Disney, Intel, Accenture, Microsoft, and Eaton, to name a few).

Tons of networking available throughout the night!

Delicious Thai food dinner.

 

I had been planning this with my friend Kim, the VP of Student Affairs, since the summer to ensure it was a successful event.  Attendance was amazing – over 80 people!

Kim and I

At the end of the night we raffled off tons of great prizes donated by the companies – the coolest were a glass chess set from Sandia National Labs and a Netbook from Intel.

The lucky winner of the Netbook, with the rep from Intel

Now onto planning our next major industry event – Fall Evening with Industry!  Just around the corner!