Alyssa Miller

Background in SWE:

In my first year, I was a part of the High School Outreach committee, working as a content creator and designing slideshows for our presentations. In my second year, I co-led the same committee, managing 6 members and organizing events.

Describe a leadership experience that challenged you. What did you learn from it and how would it influence your work on the SWE executive board?

In one of my earlier experiences as a leader, I was met with a difficult situation of mediating between my team members and my director. While leading an all-female marching band section, my members were getting sick on the field, and my director, being a man and stressed about the upcoming competitions, didn’t seem to care. I had to face my director and explain why most of my members weren’t participating in practice. Instead of apologizing or throwing the blame, I advocated for my members, explained the situation, and offered a solution. This experience has built my confidence in standing up to my superiors and standing up for my members. I learned not only how to properly communicate between these two groups but also how to take initiative and offer a solution. Within SWE, I continued to utilize these skills as a committee director, ensuring that all of my members feel supported and communicating with the executive board. These values will translate into my work as a SWE executive as I will strive to uphold a supportive environment, ensure effective communication between the committees and executives, and be ready to offer solutions.

What is one change or new initiative you would like to implement in SWE next year and why?

When I initially joined UW SWE, one of the greatest opportunities I saw was joining the network of a long-established national organization. This club opened doors to a nationwide network of people, from students to engineers in their 50th year in the industry. However, a lot of these broader networking opportunities are only open to members in leadership positions. I want to introduce more of these opportunities to general members. Given limited resources, we can coordinate with other university chapters or host local events with PNW SWE. We can further increase networking within the organization by introducing a mentorship program between upperclassmen and underclassmen.

What ideas do you have to increase member participation/retention and build stronger community within SWE?

From what I have seen in SWE, attendance at general meetings and events gets sparser over the course of a year. I believe students come to the initial meetings to meet new people, but as the year goes on, members no longer have an incentive to go. From tabling at the Admitted Students Day this year, many people expressed interest in SWE having technical competitions. I believe that adding these competitions would broaden what people can get out of being a member and incentivize people to attend events. I believe reintroducing the SWE Hacks, CAD-a-thons, or something similar would be a great way to improve member engagement. Further, these events would naturally encourage people to collaborate and build friendships by working together. The enticement of not only creating these connections but also working on valuable skill sets will cater to a broader audience and improve member participation.

What challenges do you think women in engineering still face today, and how can SWE help address them at our university?

In a short time, women have bridged the gap in STEM fields and, in some areas of education, even surpassed men. To many, this progress looks like success; however, many women are still discriminated against within the industry. I believe that within UW, women are so well supported that we fail to see the challenges we may face down the line. I, myself, was naive enough not to realize that women in engineering fields are still stereotyped and underestimated. I think SWE has done a great job of introducing members to a network of powerful, successful women who have overcome these challenges; however, this still would not prepare people for the discrimination that does occur. I believe members would benefit greatly from workshops on advocating for themselves and recognizing discrimination. These lessons would help build confidence in our members and educate them on the possible issues of the industry.

The SWE executive board works as a team to plan events and initiatives. How would you contribute to creating a positive and productive team environment?

To communicate effectively, I plan to handle topics that are only relevant to one or two other executive members outside of weekly meetings, ensuring I am respecting the time of the rest of the board. Additionally, I will come prepared with possible solutions before attending meetings to help streamline decision-making. I will contribute to upholding SWE’s inclusive and positive environment by ensuring that every member feels welcome and knows they are surrounded by support. I also believe that one of the most important considerations within this environment is understanding that people have lives outside of their roles. If someone is falling behind, I would be there to offer support and encouragement in their role and comfort (if wanted) in their situation.

If you could plan any SWE event with unlimited resources, what would it be?

With unlimited resources, I would run a start-of-the-year SWE fair/competition. I would have executive officers each run their own booth, with member volunteers, to welcome the new and current SWE members. One thing I would ensure is that SWE families are established prior to this event. At the event, I would want members to split into their families, forming their teams for the competition. Having a fun competition between families would encourage collaboration and thus establish social connections and strengthen the bonds of SWE families. I believe this would help increase member participation in SWE families for the remainder of the year. Teams can race to complete each booth event, exploring different engineering challenges, thus emphasizing UW’s message of the overlap between engineering majors and the importance of a diverse skillset. This would also be a great opportunity for all members to meet their executive team and other SWE members. The winners of the competition would be posted on the SWE Instagram to further outreach into the UW community.