Biomedical engineering senior Rachel Kullman paced across a fourth-grade Bellevue-Santa Fe Charter School classroom as 30 pairs of watchful eyes traced her every move. Kullman was giving students a basic physics lesson in preparation for a hands-on challenge.
Each student had a range of materials in front of them: a piece of cardboard, two dowel rods, a couple rubber bands, a roll of tape, one straw and one deflated balloon.
The task? Design, build and run a functioning vehicle that will move quickly and efficiently.
Activities like these may seem like fun and games, but they are part of the Society of Women Engineer’s ongoing effort to make engineering more equal, diverse and accessible at Cal Poly.
“In elementary school things are pretty level, but then middle school is where you can see the gap really start,” Kullman said regarding young students’ interest in engineering. “So our middle school activities are more geared towards hands-on learning.”
At Cal Poly, 25.8% of students enrolled in the College of Engineering (CENG) identified as women in 2022, according to the school’s enrollment data. Though the number has grown over the years, clubs like Cal Poly’s chapter of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) work every day to increase this number. This year’s enrollment data shows that women now make up even more of the engineering population.
“Overall, we’re at 32% women, which we’re jumping up and down about,” Women’s Engineering Program Director Helene Finger said. “Because it wasn’t that long ago that we were at 11%.”
A large part of SWE’s efforts to recruit the next generation of women engineers lie in its Outreach Core. Outreach efforts are aimed at local elementary, middle and high schools, with a special emphasis on underserved areas and communities.
“[SWE] has targeted activities to each age group to show them that they can be engineers and that it’s a career path, even if there’s no one in their family that is an engineer,” SWE President Payton Porter said.
Kullman is the outreach assistant of Cal Poly’s SWE chapter. In this role, she organizes and volunteers at dozens of events each year to show young students what engineering is all about and inspire confidence in girls interested in STEM topics.
Chain-reaction machines, popsicle stick bridges and of course, balloon cars, are among some of the mechanisms students have created during SWE’s hands-on outreach activities.
“It’s about getting them hands-on experience and giving them the confidence to say, ‘Oh, I actually did something really cool today, and this could be something that I see myself doing in the future,’” Kullman said.
The goal of outreach for younger students is to get kids thinking about engineering, but SWE organizes outreach events for high school-aged students as well. Typically, these events are less hands-on and more geared towards preparing students for a potential engineering education at Cal Poly specifically.
Kullman brought a small group of high schoolers around campus for one day last spring. This opportunity allowed them to sit in on classes, take tours of the labs and get a general feel for campus-life. Kullman, who did not meet a woman engineer until she arrived at Cal Poly, believes that this experience could be the defining factor in whether a student chooses to study engineering or not.
“When I told some of the guys in my [high school] class that I was going to be an engineer, they were like, ‘Really, you?’ and I said ‘Yes, me,’” she said.
In Kullman’s high school STEM classes, she was usually one of three girls in a room of 30 or more students.
“I think getting exposure to women in the field would have been so helpful to realize that there’s people that look like me doing engineering,” Kullman said.
Mechanical engineering junior Cassi Sustayta is the outreach chair for SWEnext, a program that allows students under 18 to become involved in SWE, and she had a similar experience in her earlier education. In her high school’s engineering program, she was the only girl in her classes for four years.
“I was called all the names you can think of, dishwasher being one,” Sustayta said. “I remember it being really hard and thinking, maybe engineering isn’t for me.”
At Cal Poly, Sustayta finds community in the Society of Women Engineers. She said this gives her the confidence and drive to continue her engineering education.
During her time at Cal Poly so far, Sustayta’s favorite outreach event was the California Central Coast VEX “Spin Up” Tournament earlier this year, a unique robotics competition. Here, Sustayta enjoyed meeting passionate students and was impressed by their creations.
Sustayta and SWE’s work is also beginning to transcend borders — the club is planning to partner with the engineering department at the University of Guadalajara in Mexico.
“I know from personal experience and Hispanic culture in general that women are turned away from STEM all the time,” Sustayta said. “[Women] in Mexico and the United States don’t get enough support in their jobs.”
Club leaders say the goal of SWE’s outreach is to inspire young students to pursue an education and career in engineering and provide them with a supportive, powerful community before they even apply to Cal Poly.
“Honestly, there’s days where I kind of hate my major, but outreach renews my passion for what I do both in school and with kids, and is something I’m always going to be part of,” Kullman said. “Making an impact both in the world and with younger students is so invaluable that I don’t think I’ll ever stop.”