PSWE EXECUTIVE BOARD 21-22

Hey SWEople! As the year comes to a close, we would like to thank you for a wonderful year of SWE in the 20-21 school year. For a year that was mostly virtual, you all took it in stride, stayed engaged, and made the year amazing together!

As we move into the next year, we would like to announce the 21-22 PSWE Executive Board!

1. Officers:
   • President – Angie Zhang
   • Vice President – Priya Desarazu
   • Treasurer – Marina Lennartz
   • Secretary – Claire Settlemyre

2. Directors:
   • Professional Directors – Hannah Mitchell and Kyla Souza
   • Communications Directors – Adia Raya and Rama Coimbatore
   • Outreach Directors – Liz Murphy and Becky Cantrell (F)
   • Technical Directors: Allie Losey (F) and Allison Mou (S)

3. Chairs:
   • Career Fair – Patool Kutmah
   • Networking Night – Isha Chavan
   • Evening with Engineers – Mary Vaughn
   • Market Yourself – Megan Prange
   • Professional Committee – Helen Rumsey
   • Mentoring – Sofia Alfieri
   • Outreach Committee – Anjali Padiyar (F) and Mimi Wadley
   • SWEekend – Olivia Osuch and Kaylee Smith
   • SWE Next – Priyanka Pereira
   • Girl Scout Day – Olivia Miller
   • Social Media – Alia Ahmed (F) and Hana Wong (S)
   • Webmaster – Meagan Williams
   • Athletics – Claire O’Connell
   • Social Committee – Kate Wilson (F) and Erin Bollin
   • General Meeting – Genevieve Trese and Grace Rennekamp
   • Diversity & Inclusivity – Mahati Potharaju
   • Team Tech – Dhanya Sankar and Shreya Misra

We are so excited to see what the next year in SWE brings!

As always, thank you so much for checking out the blog. See you next year, and have an amazing summer ❤

4/23 Funky Fresh Friday

Hey SWEople! 

As the semester is wrapping up and more people are getting vaccinated (if you are not already vaccinated, check out https://protect.purdue.edu/vaccine-information/ for more information) we wanted to give some ways to be more social and enjoy the end of the semester/summer!

• Talk to friends
  • Know Yourself: A Book of Questions
  • SO…Cards: A Collection of Questions for Deeper Discussions
  • Perfect for people who HATE small talk :))
  • Honestly, these games and books are perfect for learning new things about people, whether you’ve known them for ages or just met them. It’s super fun to answer these thought-provoking questions and see how everyone answers differently.
• Arts/Crafts
  • Learn embroidery and embroider pictures of you guys together (outlines/silhouettes)! Super simple for beginners, and here’s a tutorial.
  • Have a Bob Ross night and follow some tutorials together. This can be a competition too – or not. Check out Andrea’s blog interview, that’s where we got the idea!
• Go thrifting
  • In the Lafayette area there are a few places to thrift. Of course classic Goodwill, there is also Salvation Army, Amused (expensive thrifting but a good vibe), and some other small places that you’ll have to go find 😉
• Rock Paper Scissors food day
  • That TikTok trend where you play rock paper scissors to determine who gets to decide where to go for each part of your meal. Say Priyanka wins round 1; she gets to decide on where to go for a drink, like Starbucks! Grace wins round 2, so she picks Taco Bell for the main course. And you can make a day of it!
• Baking/Cooking
  • Baking/Cooking can be done on campus in nearly every residence building! (Just supply your own pots, pans, and ingredients). There are so many different recipes to follow depending on what you are craving! Some solid websites to scroll around on to find some recipes are allrecipes.com, simplyrecipes.com (for the beginners), and of course the classic foodnetwork.com! Don’t be afraid to try something new!
• Cappuccino podcast app
  • Cappuccino is a fun way to share audio stories, life updates, and jokes with close friends and family.
  • Record a short voice memo (“bean”). Listen to your Cappuccino (mix of your friends’ beans + background music). It’s like a podcast with your friends.
  • RECORD A BEAN: tap the microphone and start recording. Talk about your day, tell a joke or share a thought and send it to your close friends and family.
  • LISTEN TO YOUR CAPPUCCINO: a mix of your friends’ beans + music
  • This is so fun I do this with my friends from home and let me just say we are ACTUAL comedians!

It has been an absolute pleasure being Blog OA’s this semester! Make every Friday a Funky Fresh Friday ❤

– Grace and Priyanka

Finals Study Tips

Hey everyone!

Finals are quickly approaching… but don’t fear! You will survive and do great! Check out these great tips and resources to not just survive, but thrive, during finals week.

SI Sessions

SI sessions are a great option especially for freshmen, because nearly all intro and required FYE courses are offered! These sessions are taught by upperclassmen who review the material taught in class. This is an amazing resource to use if you feel uncomfortable with the material taught in class because it allows you more one-on-one interaction with an instructor to ask clarifying questions. Even if you haven’t attended a single S.I. session so far in the semester, go ahead and join one – the instructors really want to teach you, plus attendance will be higher during finals week anyway.

Office hours

USE. YOUR. TAs! Your professors and TAs are here to help you and want to watch you succeed so please go to them if you are really struggling to grasp the material during lecture. This is the perfect opportunity to get one on one help. Remember, you can always make plans to go with a friend in your class if it’s too intimidating to go for the first time alone!

Study groups

This is a great option for everyone – even if you think you’re better off studying on your own, it’s always great to get other students’ input and you can share resources and your own tips and tricks for the material. Chances are, people are struggling with a course just as much as you are, and this gives you a chance to help each other learn. A great study tactic is teaching someone else the material; if you can successfully teach someone how to do something, it means you understand it. Reach out to people in your class GroupMes if you don’t have a set study group already 🙂

Create a calendar study plan

Before diving into the material, take some time to plan out what needs to get done in each of your courses. Consider any practice exams, chapter reviews, rewatching lecture videos, and whatever else you need to do for each course. Once you have a list of all tasks you’d like to accomplish in each course, lay them out evenly on a calendar for 1-2 weeks in advance so you aren’t cramming just before finals. 

Reach out to upperclassmen you know

They’ve been where you are now and might have some tips, resources, and knowledge to give you. There are a bunch of SWEople who’d love to help you out with the classes they’ve taken before!

Eat and sleep!

Take care of yourself and your health first! Eating properly will help your body and brain have the energy they need to keep going during these tough next few weeks. If you aren’t well rested, too, you won’t be able to retain the information as well.

Drink water!

Caffeine’s great for keeping you going, but it isn’t always great for you. Even if you need your coffee or tea, make sure you’re drinking water, too. Also, if you’re not used to regular caffeine intake, don’t make finals week your first go at it!

Reward yourself!

(our personal preference is to reward ourselves with food, but to each their own) 

Remember to take study breaks!

Since you made it this far, here’s some adorable animal pics to make you smile 🙂

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4/16 Funky Fresh Friday

Hello everyone! We’re back again with a list of fun, funky, fresh Friday activities. This week’s general theme is outdoorsy activities – the weather’s starting to look up, especially this upcoming Monday!

• Hammock / Picnic
• Stargazing / Sunset chasing
• Go for a walk/hike
  • In the area:
    • Celery Bog Nature Area
    • Happy Hollow Park
    • Wabash Heritage Trail
  • Drive/Bus to:
    • Turkey Run State Park
    • Twin Bridges Loop Trail
    • Indiana Dunes National Park Cowles Bog Trail
• Any sort of exercise
  • Running
  • Biking
  • Skateboarding/Longboarding
  • Roller Skating
  • Spike-ball
  • Throw a Frisbee
  • Sand/Beach Volleyball
  • Tennis

We will see you next week! Have a relaxing weekend and the funkiest and freshest Friday! ❤

Grace and Priyanka

MEET THE BOARD: Priya Desarazu & Abbey Vincent

Priya Desarazu: Outreach Co-Director

What is your name, hometown, year, and major? What is your position in SWE this year?

I’m Priya Desarazu. I’m from Houston, Texas and I’m a junior majoring in industrial engineering. This year, I was one of the outreach directors along with Abbey Vincent.

Tell me a little bit about yourself.

A lot of people don’t know that I actually started off in ME and I decided to CODO into IE after the first semester of my sophomore year. I have an internship with PepsiCo for this upcoming summer and I’m really excited about that. Unrelated to school, I run a lot in my free time. I’ve always wanted a pet chinchilla. I have to have dessert with every single meal – my sweet tooth is just off the radar. I have a younger sister and I was born and raised in Texas. My whole life. The goal for me was always to get out of Texas. And so I’ve always wanted to live either on the West coast or the East coast.

Getting back to the topic of SWE,  I’ve been involved in SWE since the first semester of my freshman year, when I participated in the outreach committee. I remember going to all the meetings because I wanted to try and be as active as possible. And then when I was a sophomore, I was one of the senior sneak peek chairs back when it was in person. I’m a director now, and I recently got elected as the new vice-president. So I’m super excited about that. That’s a rough overview of me, I guess!

What responsibilities do you hold in SWE this year? 

Abbey and I manage all of the chairs in the outreach pillar, so we make sure that they’re meeting their deadlines, they’re performing their responsibilities. And we assist them in any way we can. For example, with PSWEekend, we’ve been helping a lot with that. We’ve been sending emails to professors asking them to participate in certain panels. We’ve even asked the officers to help with that as well. I would say it’s also a lot of communicating between the chairs and the officers because we’re the middlemen. As an outreach director, we have to be there to pick up the workload if something happens with one of the chairs. We have to be prepared to take on that responsibility, but mostly, like I said, it’s just making sure that they’re doing what they’re supposed to be doing, making sure they’re meeting all the deadlines and assisting them and answering any questions that they might have about like SAO, filling out forms, and things like that.

How did you end up deciding to go to Purdue?

I knew that I wanted to study engineering, I think my junior year of high school, because I knew that I really enjoyed math and science. I was horrible at reading, or English and social studies, so there was no way I was going to be a liberal arts major. And so when I was applying to schools, that was something I really looked for. I wanted that kind of reputation cause I know that Purdue has a very good name associated with it. So that was probably one of the things that I looked for the most when I was applying to colleges. And it’s funny because, and this was probably, this was probably one of the main reasons that I decided to come here. It was actually one of the only schools that I was able to get into.

I think it worked out because I was glad that I was able to get out of state and meet so many people because Purdue just has so many out-of-state people. So it’s nice, you know, meeting people from not only the US but from all over the world as well. And so I think that was also a reason why I decided to come was because I knew that I’d be able to meet a whole bunch of different people and see those new perspectives.

What are some of the other activities you like to do on campus?

Let’s see. As far as things on campus, I was a TL, but I was a TL in between my freshman and sophomore year and that was a lot of fun. I didn’t have the best group of kids, but it was nice getting to know the other TLs because they’re all super nice. And then I actually did do research the summer after my freshman year. My engineering 131 and 132 teacher –  I had her for both courses – knew at the time that I wanted to go into mechanical engineering. She was really sweet and she actually put me in contact with somebody who is a mechanical engineering professor. And he was nice enough to take me on over the summer. Granted, I was a freshman, so I didn’t really have a whole lot of experience. The tasks that I was doing weren’t super advanced. But it was still a good experience because it made me realize that I don’t think I want to go to graduate school for engineering specifically. 

As far as other things I like to do for fun, I like to run, like I said I got into it over quarantine because I actually had a friend challenge me. And so I was like, all right, do you, do you want to do this? We’ll do it. Yeah. So I’m really into running because of my competitive streak. I’ve actually met a lot of my friends like through SWE. So on the weekends or Friday nights, you’ll probably catch me hanging out with them. I am 21 so I can go to the bars with them, too. But yeah, that’s pretty much what I do outside and as far as like other extracurricular stuff.

What is your favorite class you’ve taken at Purdue?

I think my favorite class that I have taken was probably an introductory industrial engineering course. So it’s IE 230 and that’s basically your first intro to probability because you take a lot of courses on probability in IE. And I really liked that because growing up I always loved math. I love working with numbers. That’s essentially what that class was, you know, working with numbers and figuring out how to predict things. So yeah, I would say IE 230 has probably been my favorite class in terms of the material.

How did you pick your major?

When I was a freshman and I was figuring out what I wanted to do, I had no idea what industrial engineers did. All I knew is that I wanted to be able to go into something that was broad since I didn’t want to go into a super concentrated field so early on. I think that’s why I went into ME in the first place, and I just didn’t really know what I wanted to do. Then I remember taking ME specific classes and I was like, this is so horrible. I don’t understand how people like cars this much, you know, because you take thermodynamics and it has to do with things like learning about how gas flows through a car engine. And I was like, I hate this. I would never, ever want to do that. Huge respect for the field, but it just didn’t fit me! I think it’s always good to remind each other that you always can change your mind and your major if you want to.

What drew you to join SWE?

I would say I knew that I wanted to join an organization that consisted of female engineering students just because I wanted to be a part of that community. For some reason, I originally thought we had to be a part of it, but then I realized that everybody who identifies as a woman and who is enrolled in engineering is automatically part of WIEP, the women in engineering program. But you yourself have to take the initiative to go enjoy things like SWE or other minority engineering organizations. So yeah, I knew I wanted to join a community of only female engineering students. And I mentioned earlier that I got really involved with outreach because I liked how they were working with little kids at the time. Growing up, I’ve always, always enjoyed working with children. I think it’s really cute, really fun. And so they have these events where they, you know, they would teach kids about engineering. I think that’s what drew me to SWE, that they have those events focused on outreach with kids and that really attracted me to the organization.

What is your favorite SWE memory over the past few years?

I would say my favorite sweet memory was the board retreat my sophomore year. So retreat in fall of 2019. We did the, I believe it was the high ropes course. It’s off-campus but you do a lot of team building exercises. And still you’re forced to work with one another and to talk to people that you haven’t really talked to before. So that was a lot of fun and plus, I’m a pretty active person. So what we were doing at the retreat was we were doing these challenges where we’d have to like balance on a log or something or there were some other physical challenges, all of which are activities I really enjoy! That was definitely my favorite memory.

Favorite movie?

My favorite movie is Zero Dark Thirty. It’s about the woman who hunted Osama bin Laden. I know I’m weird, but that’s my favorite movie. Plus, the director Kathryn Bigelow is great.

Favorite TV show?

Arrested Development. A very different vibe!

If you have a favorite book, what’s your favorite book?

Ender’s Game. 

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live?

London, England. So I went there when I was like 13 for the first time. And granted when I was 13, like I didn’t really appreciate, you know, being able to travel to London. But when I was there I really liked it a lot. I would love to be able to afford to live there one day.

ABBEY VINCENT : OUTREACH CO-DIRECTOR

How did you end up deciding to go to Purdue?

I did a summer camp at Purdue my freshman year of high school and I worked with engineering professors. It was a really cool camp. It’s called GER²I, and they do a two week residential camp where I stayed in Earhart’s dorm for two weeks, which is crazy. And I really liked everybody who was here. The professors were also really great that we got to work with. That experience is what piqued my interest in Purdue. And year after year, I somehow managed to find a reason to come out here once a year, for like accepted students days or Interested in Purdue kind of days. Every time I was on campus, I would make a friend. It was so random, but I could see that it just fit. I would make a friend, and we would be friends for life, and I’d see some new people and some previous friends every time I came back to campus. And I realized that was the kind of person that was applying to Purdue. I knew that this was where I needed to be socially and then getting into the honors college, I was like, okay. The dorms are really nice compared to any other dorms that I’ve visited. It was here or Cornell, but at Cornell the people did not vibe with me. So I ended up going to Purdue, and I have such a long connection to it even though I’m from out of state, I knew I had to come here.

How did you end up deciding on computer engineering?

So I came to college knowing that’s where I wanted to be. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do more electrical stuff or computer engineering stuff. But I took AP Comp Sci in high school. I basically conned my advisor into letting me take it online. I told her that this is what I want to do. So she found an online AP Comp Sci class for me, so I could take it and I loved it. Even before that, I knew I wanted to be in engineering. But like when I took that class, I was like, okay, software or hardware is somewhere I need to be. And then I got to campus and in honors engineering, you build robots. And the coding part was always the strong part for me. I was always the one that was doing the software side of things, whereas my teammates were doing things like building the robot itself. Computer engineering just made sense for me.

What is your favorite SWE memory over the past few years?

It was my first semester as a chair and I hosted my first event. That was Girl Scout Day in October. And I remember leaving the event and feeling this insane sense of accomplishment because it was so much stress going into the event. Before it, I was like, Oh my God, I can’t do this. But then  the event went off without a hitch. And I was so proud of myself. And I feel like that boosted my confidence as a professional and somebody who can organize these large events and have big responsibilities and be able to do it successfully. I remember standing at the crosswalk and I was just like, wow, I really rock. One of those confidence building moments that I will never forget.

What are some of the other activities you like to do on campus?

The first two years that I was here, I was in band and I love band. I adore it, nothing but positive things to say about band, but this semester, or last semester, I decided to take a step away from band because of COVID. I felt like that was a risk I didn’t want to take. I play oboe, and that’s fun. I like going to Purdue games whenever I can,and I used to do that a lot too. I’m working on a side project with one of my friends. We’re like building a social media app for fun. It’s supposed to be a replacement for GroupMe. It’s supposed to be a way that you can have like one feed where you see everything that’s important to you and like, you can prioritize things you want, so you don’t miss notifications that are important.

What is your name, hometown, year, and major? What is your position in SWE this year?

Hi, I’m Abbey Vincent. I’m from Port Byron, New York and I’m a junior in computer engineering. I’m the co-director for the outreach pillar.

Tell me a little bit about yourself.

I feel like it makes sense that I’m the outreach director, because I always want to help other people. So that’s probably why I ended up in this pillar and like why I love it so much. So I feel like that’s like a really strong character trait about myself – always looking to help someone else out. Sometimes even at the detriment of my grades, where I’m like, Oh, sure, I can help you with your homework. That’s a pretty strong thing that you could say about me!

What responsibilities do you hold in SWE this year? 

Sure. So what we do as outreach directors is oversee what is going on with our chairs and interact with them on a more personal basis. Whereas like the officers who are like overseeing those pillars, they do more of like the general SWE admin stuff. The directors get to work one-on-one with the chairs and make sure everything’s going smooth for their events. If they need somebody else to talk to administrative people, we can do that for our chairs. If they have something going on and need somebody to fill a role really quickly, that’s what we’re there for. We also can give advice to our chairs, because both Priya and I both have been chairs for the outreach pillar in the past. So we have experience as well with event planning and things like that. We’re also in charge of planning bonding for everyone, and we do a little outreach and directorship bonding once every semester. We’re going bowling this semester!

What is your favorite class you’ve taken at Purdue?

My favorite computer engineering class was Data Structures. It was ECE 368, and I liked it so much I became a TA for the class last semester. But yeah, I really liked that class just because I felt like it was really preparing me for stuff I’m doing in industry. I mean , it’s really an intense class where you’re literally doing projects all the time. In the moment it felt awful, but reflecting on it and then being a TA, I felt more confident in my abilities to interview and have knowledge in those areas. But as for non ECE classes, I did an independent study with an honors professor last semester as well. And we were studying the ethics of artificial intelligence, which was totally awesome. I’m doing my scholarly project on it now. So that’s kind of fun. In the honors college, they make you do a project in order to graduate with honors. So I’m working on that right now. 

What drew you to join SWE?

Actually in the eighth grade, there’s a SWE chapter back in New York that I did an overnight camp at, for like a week. And it was super engineering heavy and it was hosted by the SWE branch there. And that experience with SWE when I was 14 is the whole reason why I even wanted to do engineering. When I got to Purdue,  I knew I wanted to be involved with SWE because like, that’s the whole reason I’m here. So when I got on campus, I went to the call-outs and became an office assistant because that was the most accessible way for me to get involved. I was an office assistant for the senior sneak peek chair at the time – now it’s called PSWEekend. I had that little, like inside scoop into outreach. I knew I liked this pillar the most, but I knew I wanted to work with younger students. So then I applied to be the Girl Scout Day chair since I had experience with Girl Scouts too. I’m a volunteer troop leader back at home.

And then once I was in the chair position, that was it. I love outreach. I love SWE. And I was able to attend more events and I felt more of a connection to the members and SWE as well at that point, because I’d attended more events. I’ve met nearly all of my closest friends through SWE.

Favorite movie?

My favorite movie. That would be Twitches even if it’s not Halloween. I love that movie so much.

Favorite TV show?

Probably New Girl. I want to be Jess so bad. 

If you have one, favorite book?

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen. Love a good period piece.

If you could live anywhere in the world, like where would you live?

I really wanted to study abroad. I was planning on studying abroad in Barcelona or studying abroad in Madrid and then working in Barcelona my junior year. But obviously COVID happened, so joke’s on me! But I would really like to live in Barcelona at some point in my life.

If you could have any super power, what would it be?

Definitely any way to eliminate travel time. Teleportation. I hate those intermediate times where you’re just trying to get where you need to be and it’s useless! Some machine, something you just twist and you end up in a different spot. 

Thanks for checking out the blog, everyone, and a huge thank you to Abbey and Priya for taking the time to be interviewed! Hope you all have an amazing week. See you on Friday for another Funky Fresh Friday 🙂