This year, the WE20 Conference was virtual for the SWE Illinois section. Several SWEsters reflected on their experiences and how it helped them develop as a professional.

It was my first time attending the conference so I wasn't sure what to expect but it really exceeded anything I could have expected. I personally attended a lot of professional development events as well as diversity and inclusion events and I learned so much. One thing that I really took away from it was how important having confidence in yourself as a professional is whether it's in an interview, with coworkers or your boss, it's so important to take yourself and your accomplishments seriously and know your worth. Another part of the conference that impacted me was meeting with fellow female professionals such as the Central Illinois chat. I learned so much from the two women in my breakout room and they inspired me to invest more thought into my career and professionalism. I really recommend this conference for any SWEster looking to meet and network with inspirational women in engineering and who also want to grow as leaders and professionals. Overall it was such a great experience!

Cassidy Steel

I have never attended a conference before and was extremely excited for WE20 even if I was participating virtually. The UIUC SWE section did an amazing job of keeping the conference participants engaged by hosting Zoom discussion sessions to go over the workshops and keynote speakers. My favorite feature about the conference being online was the pre-recorded videos and live sessions being recorded. This allowed me to not miss any workshops or talks that I was interested in but had class at that time. I also enjoyed the graphics and virtual set-up of the career fair. I was able to speak with a couple of recruiters and was even invited to a fireside chat for one of the companies. The site was user friendly and even discovered some of the hidden objects placed for the scavenger hunt! I learned so much about my leadership style, mental/physical health balance, the SWE Affinity Groups, and planning Outreach specific events through the sessions I watched. Overall I enjoyed my virtual WE20 experience and appreciate the amount of dedication and time put into making it possible!

Christina Garcia

My favorite part about the WE20 virtual conference was getting to build connections with so many other people in our SWE section. I was worried that with the conference being entirely virtual, I wouldn’t really get to meet new people, but this wasn't the case at all. We had tons of bonding events within our SWE section, as well as a game night with UW Madison and breakfast with the Central Illinois professional section. This conference was a great way to get to know more SWEsters within our section and network with other sections, which was an amazing opportunity to have during my virtual semester from home!

Abby Culloton

The 2020 pandemic has served everyone unique, unprecedented challenges, and WE20 was no exception. Over 40 members of our SWE-Illinois members hopped online to attend virtual WE20!

Though virtual, sessions were engaging. Instead of the usual 3 days of events, they were spread over the course of 3 weeks. Some were live, others pre-recorded, others leveraged a semi-live format. Members learned about the effects of gender bias in different countries, self-management strategies for different personality types, leadership styles for technical teams, how to build virtual networking skills, and much more. Additionally, because the conference was virtual, it was more accessible than ever for international SWEesters. Some of our members outside the U.S. were even able to connect with others from their own countries!

Connecting with other collegiate members is always a huge plus at conferences. We can exchange leadership advice, discuss our different events, and socialize. Fortunately, we were still able to do this in the first-ever SWE-Illinois X SWE-UW Madison event! We played virtual games, socialized, and made sure to connect on LinkedIn to stay in touch.

Our Team Tech also competed in the first-ever virtual Team Tech competition! Only 10 collegiate teams worldwide are accepted to compete in this competition, and our section’s acceptance is owed to the hard, thoughtful, work that our team put into their project.

To top the experience off, we had our own Celebrate SWE-Illinois! We discussed the history of our section, including SWE’s inception in 1950 and our section’s beginning in 1960. Our current diversity efforts echo the values SWE has always advocated for. In 1976, SWE changed its bylaws to admit men as full members of the organization. In 2020, HeForSWE was officially named an affinity group at HQ and our section’s HeForSWE group was created. We are reminded of how far SWE has come, but how far we have to go in pursuing Diversity and Inclusion in engineering.

Our first faculty advisor, Professor Grace Wilson.

Finally, this year our section won the following awards:

Mission Award: Best Practice - Professional Development

Mission Award: Silver

Best Practice: SWE Resource Promotion

Collegiate Gold

We additionally congratulate our alum Grace Pakeltis on winning Outstanding SWE Collegiate Member!

These awards are telling of all the hard work our leadership, including exec, officers, chairs, and general members, put into our organization. Our section truly would not be the same without the consistent dedication of our members.

Though this conference was virtual, our members and the rest of the SWE community still had a great time and valuable experience. This blog post is a mere testament to the amazing interactions and education that occurred during WE20. Personally, I’m excited to see what else SWE will bring virtually throughout this pandemic!

Amanda Hsu