Emily Frantz: Notes on my Nuclear Network

This past July, I had the opportunity to attend the US Women in Nuclear conference in Chicago.  This was the first time I saw my network build from previous connections, especially ones from SWE!  But I'll get to that...  

I was one of 36 students of the 460 conference attendees.  WIN is a 5800 member organization of women and men who work in nuclear and radiation related fields around the country that focus on networking, professional development, and outreach activities.  The direction of WIN is different than SWE in many ways, but the stressed importance of continuously networking and developing all your professional skills is the same.

Group of students and I before we left to eat deep dish pizza and explore Chicago!

My roommate from the conference and I on the last day!

This incredible experience began when I received an email announcing the scholarship to attend the conference from the Nuclear Energy Institute.  I applied on a whim and was lucky enough to receive sponsorship to go to Chicago!  I would be travelling to a new city, by myself, and arriving without knowing anyone attending.  I didn't even know my roommate until I arrived at the hotel room.  While it sounds risky, I highly suggest doing it if you have the chance!  When networking is a survival technique, not just a professional skill, you will catch on much quicker.

The first night of the conference I attended the student and mentor meeting (as part of the scholarship, I was partnered with a mentor; this was when we met each other).  First of all, I would like to say that at least half of the students attending were guys!  I expected a few, but it was surprising to see so many at the WOMEN in Nuclear conference.  Sitting there, assessing the room, a girl sitting in the front looking very much like a collegiate I had met at the WE12 (the SWE national conference) in Houston.  I thought, "Eh, couldn't be", until seeing her later in the evening at the networking dinner.  I went up and sure enough I was right!  In Houston, she and I had chatted at the career fair at the conference because she was looking at many of the same companies as I, since we're both nuclear engineers.  Through her I met the other students from her university that offered advice on starting a WIN chapter at RPI.  Those students then introduced me to all of their supervisors at their respective internships.

The next day of the conference my mentor said there were a few people she wanted me to meet:  her coworkers and "someone who is looking for you".  Taken aback, it turns out that through the grapevine, she had heard that a woman was looking for Emily Frantz.  The mystery was concerning, but my pursuer ended up being an RPI alumni who had seen in the attendees list that I was from RPI!  I learned she graduated from the nuclear engineering department about 20 years ago when there were only eight in the major, three of which being women.  She joked that "the number was so small that the ratio was easy to beat"!  Soon she introduced me to colleagues who introduced me to colleagues who introduced me to a woman who was an intern program organizer, who turned out to be a woman I had sat and spoke with at dinner the night before!

The best part of travelling by myself is that I felt free to sit with strangers wherever I went:  meals, sessions, programs.  By doing so, I made more connections than I could count in the three days of the conference.  I suggest that even if you attend an event as a group, break away from each other and meet new people!  Set goals to always make a new connection, especially if you do so through a previously made connection.  The more you try, the bigger your network gets!  Just like on LinkedIn (if you don't have a profile, go make one), those you meet are your "first connections" and everyone in their network have the potential to be a new direct connection for you.  By putting yourself out there, you are giving yourself the opportunity to build and grow.

A summary and set of parting messages on networking:

• Use what you have (SWE, school, major, interests, etc) to make those connections.  The number of times I said, "I'm in SWE" and got the response, "ME TOO!" was significant
• Talk less and ask more questions, it shows you're genuinely interested in making connections (not just building a network) and will give you info that is easier (and more interesting) to remember than just a name and job title!  
• And write it down!  Name, contact, where/when you met, and what you talked about.  It sounds like a spy notebook of creepy notes, but it comes in handy so all your networking doesn't go to waste when you meet so many people you can't differentiate one from another
• Mentors play a key role in networking.  They help introduce you to the right people and want to help, so don't be afraid to solicit their assistance in making connections
• Go outside your comfort zone and take EVERY opportunity to network (there was a walk around the city every morning of the conference at 6AM and I'd drag myself out there; I met women who are truly powerhouses and as tired as I was, I'm glad I did it)
• Don't stress that you "have" to meet people and "make those connections" and "make it happen if you're ever going to get a job"... it is something you learn, so go at your own pace (its a marathon. not a sprint)!  It isn't the number of business cards you collect, its if the person you spoke with is going to remember meeting you

If anyone has further networking advice for those starting a network at their first conference (WE13 is coming up!) or how to build the network they have, please comment below or submit your own post (it can be a few lines, not necessarily a novella) to swe@union.rpi.edu!

More information on WIN can be found on the WIN website!  And if you are really interested in a nuclear career, I hope to start a chapter soon!

Emily Frantz: Any Ladies in the House? Using SWE to be a Female Roll Model

There has been the question if we have enough female role models for STEM: both role models in the media and enough women out there being real and relatable.  The answer is most definitely no to both!

While yes, we should have strong STEM women as protagonists in more shows on TV and in movies, I don't work in Hollywood, so how can I help there?  I can't do much other than support such productions.

What I CAN do is be a role model myself, and as a SWE member, you can do the same!  Through outreach and mentoring, we can show the next generation what a female engineer, mathematician, chemist, physicist, or computer whiz looks like.  We have jumped one hurdle by having more women pursuing higher education.  In 2009, 57% of college students were women!  Compared to 1970, when less than 27% of female high school graduates enrolled in college, that is a step in the right direction!  The next hurdle?  Women hold less than 25% of STEM jobs.  We need role models to show that these are positions women can not only hold, but excel in!  (Statistics from Getting to the STEM of Gender Inequality)

Chelsea Clinton recently spoke on the issue and gave her opinion that, "I think [girls are] not seeing role models — they’re seeing boys who are astronauts, boys who are engineers, they’re seeing boys who start Facebook or Google, they’re not seeing girls, its really hard to imagine yourself as something that you don’t see, particularly when you’re a kid” (Quote from Girls need STEM role models).  I agree with her.  My father is an engineer and I know that because of seeing that as I grew up, I considered the career.  How often do we hear that someone becomes an engineer because their mother is an engineer?  I haven't heard it often enough from my peers.  As women in STEM, we need to be the role models that we wanted to see growing up.

As Mahatma Gandhi once said (and many have said since), "Be the change that you wish to see in the world".  How to be the change you may ask?

• Become a mentor.  Check out the Women at Rensselaer Mentoring Program and get involved!
• Join RPI SWE's Outreach group!  Multiple times a semester we work with girls of all ages through local schools, Girl Scout troops, and different programs RPI's School of Engineering does (Design Your Future Day for example).

I recently heard this poem:

A Cautious Leader
A cautious leader I must be, for a future leader follows me.
I do not dare go astray, for fear they’ll go the same self-way.
I cannot once escape their eyes, for what they see me do they try.
Like me one day they say they’ll be, the future leader who follows me.
So I must remember as I go, through exhilarating highs and discouraging lows.
That I am building for all to see, the future leader who follows me.
–Anonymous

Just something to keep in mind while we're following our dreams, who we can inspire to follow theirs!

On a side note, the blog THIS IS WHAT A SCIENTIST LOOKS LIKE features posts from real scientists who have submitted their stories!  If you look, at least half of them are women!  Quickly look at the "Stereotype" page too.  I challenge you to submit a post from your summer internships and share it with RPI SWE if you end up on the blog!

Book Club: More STEM Summer Reads

The next book I read was A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. I would dare say that this has been my favorite read of the summer (thus far, of course).

The title is very appropriate as the scope of this novel is quite large.  Bryson tells the history of our planet from the Big Bang to now by going through every discipline of science, including everything from astronomy to zoology.  While there is a lot of information, the author's humor made this an incredibly entertaining read.

One of my favorite passages tells the story of Thomas Midgley, Jr.  The Ohio inventor was an engineer by training, and as Bryson says, "the world would have been a safer place if he had stayed so" (page 149).  Instead in 1921 he began to work for General Motors Research Corporation working on the industrial applications of chemistry, specifically tetraethyl lead.  The compound reduced engine knock (when it shakes and vibrates), but released lead, a neurotoxin into the air... YET it still reduced engine knock so a few large corporations invested together to create Ethyl Gasoline Corporation to mass produce it.  Soon the production workers were suffering severely from the effects of lead, but the media was told they were simply working too hard.  After a number of deaths, Midgley went in front of journalists and poured tetraethyl lead all over his hands and held a full beaker under his nose for a minute, saying he would be fine if he did that every day.  When really, he had suffered from overexposure a few months before and never went near the stuff unless he needed to reassure journalists!  It wasn't until 1986 that actions were successful at ending the compound's production, and almost immediately "lead levels in the blood of Americans fell by 80%.  But because lead is forever, those of us alive today have 625 times more lead in our blood than people did a century ago" (page 158).  If that wasn't bad enough, in the 1920's he also invented chloroflurocarbons (CFCs) which began for refrigerators but ended up being used in thousands of products from air conditioners to deodorant sprays.  CFCs stick around forever and devour the ozone in the stratosphere.  Bryson sums their effects as, "in short, chloroflurocarbons may ultimately prove to be just about the worst invention of the twentieth century" (page 152).  Thomas Midgley, Jr.'s final invention was a device to automatically raise or turn him in bed after he became crippled with polio.  In 1944, Midgley was entangled in the cords when the device went into action and strangled him.

This one is a little darker than most, but I found Midgley's end somewhat fitting!  That is one of the countless snippets of our history.  The breadth of Bryson's findings provide plenty of stories for those of all interests, go find your favorite!  

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Earlier in the summer, I read The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II by  Denise Kiernan after a recommendation from a classmate.

The novel follows several women  in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, who were brought in secret to work on the Manhattan Project.  For many of the young women, it was their first job, a means to provide for their family, or an opportunity to make a life.  Many met their husbands and started families in their years working on the project.  The whole time they were kept in the dark to what they were actually creating, most not learning until a radio broadcast after the atomic bombs had been dropped and Oak Ridge erupted into cries of victory.  This descriptive telling of life in Oak Ridge best paints the whole picture, each young women having a different role in the war effort, living situation, background prior to the war, and life after her years there.  This was a historical novel, much like The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks that tells the human side of scientific discoveries and events.

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It you have any younger siblings, nieces/nephews, cousins, or children you babysit, SWE recently posted on Facebook this list of great STEM books for kids!  Check those out and help inspire some young minds!