On Monday night in Saint Mary’s Science Hall, the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) hosted alumna Megan Garcia Shepherd to speak about her experience in consulting for KPMG. Shepherd was part of the Saint Mary's College and Notre Dame engineering program and has worked for KPMG for seven years.
SWE president Molly Pooler explained Shepherd's motivations for speaking to current students.
“She’s a Saint Mary's and Notre Dame engineering alum and she reached out because she’s doing a recruiting event for KPMG at Notre Dame and she wanted to come talk to Saint Mary’s students and give advice,” Pooler said.
Alumni who went through the same process that Saint Mary’s engineering students go through often come back to visit and share their own experiences, as well as give advice to students.
“The engineering program is when you finish college in five years. In four years you graduate from Saint Mary's with a Bachelor's in science, and in five years you graduate from Notre Dame with a corresponding engineering degree to your Saint Mary’s degree,” Pooler said. “There's not many girls who do the program relative to the number of students who graduate from the engineering program so it’s a very tight-knit community.”
Students use these meetings to build more connections and find different internship experiences. Shepherd talked about a Women's Advisory Summit, a three-day internship that would offer classes and be a way to build connections in the summer. A big portion of it is to emphasize more women in male-dominated fields.
“I like going to the professional development workshops because I’m only a sophomore so I still want to build up more of those skills. I really want to hone in on getting my network and making those connections and continuing to talk to those people and continuing the conversations as I continue my education,” SWE member Ryleigh Alles said.
SWE members who might not know the full scope of potential jobs that they can use with their degree attended the meeting. Shepherd focused on the work that she's done like visiting different sites and communicating with companies like Facebook, Google and IBM.
These presentations are ways for Saint Mary’s students to understand what their degree and unique experiences can offer them in professional spaces.
“I really like engineering and I want to pursue it. My thing is I don’t want to sit and work a desk job and just code for hours on it. I never heard of the consulting side of it, which I thought would be very interesting because I like people work and talking to people. I wanted to know what the experience was like being a consultant but also being an engineer,” said Alles.
Pooler explained why Shepherd's visit was not only informative for students, but how it also served as an important opportunity for students to connect with a professional in a career field they may be interested in pursuing.
“It’s important to hear from a professional in the industry and then further narrow down what they want to do,“ Pooler said. “I think they can offer good professional advice in terms of networking, how to communicate, especially in male-dominated fields.”
