The month of October had a welcome break in Long Beach, CA for the Society of Women Engineers WE09 Conference. I had many reasons to go, and it was a lot of fun! As a Collegiate Senator, I had to spend some time meeting with other senators, and voting on some bylaws stuff and working on a task force. I also had to meet with some fellow leadership coaches, and barely had time to visit the career fair (which, by the way, is rumored to be one of the world's largest). Of course, this didn't mean I didn't have time for a little bit of fun at the beach. :)
I arrived on Wednesday, a day early, to do some personal sight-seeing. Ryan Kramer picked me up from LAX, and we went straight to SpaceX for a tour. Kramer is a fellow CU ASEN graduate and friend of mine, and he is studying Engineering Management at USC right now.
SpaceX was a lot of fun, and it was an interesting compare-&-contrast from what I know from Blue Origin.
Afterwards, we went to The Getty Center for lunch and the museum & garden. Lunch was delicious, and the fog that had settled into CA ruined some of the famous views...but created a beauty of its own.
It was so much fun to see Kramer, and enjoy a little bit of the area before confiding myself to a convention center for four days. After making my way back to Long Beach, I attended the SWE Ice Cream social for reunion #2 with Jenny Vallero! She was our CU SWE president two years ago, and is the lovely lady who got me involved with SWE. Here we are with Heather Doty, our CU SWE Counselor.
That evening, the other 8 CU students flew into Long Beach. We crammed all 9 of us into two hotel rooms, only to discover on night #2 that there were hidden suites attached to our rooms...which resulted in each of us getting our own bed (with the exception of Jayne and Katherine, who still had to share)!
Day 1: Registration. I asked for the registration for "Kristina Wang", and this is what I got:
Sadly, my favorite hospitality suite, the Whirlpool/Kitchenaid one, was not present this year. :( In 2007, I got a free ice cream scooper, and in 2008, I got a set of nesting tupperware bowls. They do a raffle, giving away tons of their products (blenders, mixers, washers, dryers, refrigerators)...and they demo a lot of them, too...which means lots of delicious food! Hopefully they will be back next year.
Some CU girls, enjoying quesadillas and smoothies at the Schlumberger hospitality suite:
For the Celebrate SWE Banquet, each region has to present a spirit skit. Region i had a pretty fantastic one, where we sang "Eye of the Tiger," but reworded to say "Region i of SWE"...here we are with our props. I'm Oklahoma. :)
Reunion #3: Elaine Chao from Seattle!! :) Elaine is also a Collegiate Senator, so I met her in Chicago during our training. We hung out a little bit during my last weeks in Seattle. I'll see her again in January at our second senate meeting in Chicago, and hopefully she'll come visit Colorado soon!
We managed to sneak away to the beach for about half an hour at the end of Friday. :) Quintessential JUMP PICTURE!
Delicious Greek Food. Here we are with everybody! There was Reunion #4 here with Brandon Taylor, a former CU SWE member (yes, a dude...men are allowed to join SWE!), but he is not in this photo. :( Oh, but there IS Wendy in this photo (Reunion #5), who was our Regional Collegiate Representative last year, and someone I work with.
Reunion #6 and 7: I had a chance to see Jaime and Shivali very briefly during our lunch break on Saturday! Also Aerospace graduates, they live in CA working for JPL and Northrop respectively. Unfortunately, Leah couldn't make it. :(
The conference wrapped up with the Celebrate SWE Banquet. It kicks off with the spirit skits, and then the rest of the evening rolls into awards. I was lucky enough to get on the stage three times: Outstanding Collegiate Member Award, 2nd Place in the Techincal Poster Competition (Yay MADS!), and accepting on behalf of CU for the Oustanding Collegiate Section - Silver Level Award during my time as SWE President last year.
Here I am, in front of the "award winners" display..my photo is by my knee. :)
Reunion #8: Kelly Foster! My roommate from my time at Cessna Aircraft in Wichita, KS in 2007. :) She also received an OCS-Silver Level Award with her school, Wayne State! We had a reunion #9 with our fellow Cessna intern, Jeremy Alonso, who lives in the LA area working for Northrop.
There was also Reunion #10 with Fairview classmate, Jing Guo, who goes to Duke University. Randomly ran into her during the collegiate luncheon, and we hung out for a bit while we were both there. Hooray!
For the first time, they hosted a "dance party" after Celebrate SWE. We definitely participated, and it was a lot of fun...kind of like a SWE Prom. :)
Some lattes at my favorite Boulder coffee shop, The Cup.
