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Change Is Always With Us
The materials used to build our houses, streets, and cities may not look like what we are accustomed to in a few years. But the benefits to our ecosystems — and our wallets — will be worth the adjustments.
Change can be uncomfortable for everyone. Even change that leads to personal growth and success can be difficult at first. Yet change often brings benefits, even if the path is sometimes rougher than we would like.
As contributor Lisa Owens Viani reports in “Materials Metamorphosis,” researchers hope to change the way we produce the materials used to make everything from silk fabrics to building supplies. In the process, researchers are lowering many materials’ carbon footprints while creating side benefits to the environment and the supply chain. The materials used to build our houses, streets, and cities may not look like what we are accustomed to in a few years. But the benefits to our ecosystems — and our wallets — will be worth the adjustments.
Changing the way scientists and engineers talk about their research and projects to ensure the lay public understands can also have profound positive impacts. That’s why contributor Christine Coolick offers 12 tips on how to present scientific and engineering concepts clearly, concisely, and with confidence. One of the best ideas? Present the conclusion first. Read the others in “Be an Attention-Grabber.”
College students deal with change all the time, from moving out on their own for the first time to taking full ownership of their scholarly pursuits. In “You Asked, SWE Answered,” editorial board member Payal Singh and chair-elect Nicole Woon address a student who isn’t sure if internships are worth the effort. The short answer is yes; but that doesn’t mean there aren’t questions to be answered before making the leap.
Engineering education methods have evolved from apprenticeships to formal instruction, and now include communications skills and collaboration, in addition to hard science. As editorial board member and community college teacher Beth McGinnis-Cavanaugh points out in “Viewpoint,” the National Academy of Engineering says these changes are creating “flexible, dynamic, and inclusive student-centered models that prepare students for a lifetime of learning and innovation.”
Of course, not all change is positive, at least not at the outset. As contributor Seabright McCabe reports in “The Pendulum Swings on Corporate DEI,” many consumer product companies and retailers have changed their stance on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in response to anti-DEI executive orders issued by the current administration. But as expert Alison Taylor says in her Q&A with McCabe, shareholders and consumers are pushing back with significant impacts to some companies’ bottom lines. “Things could easily look very different in six months,” she says.
SWE Magazine isn’t immune to the need to adjust from time to time, either. This year we will change the publication schedule so that the first issue of 2026 (Winter) will become the last issue of 2025, called the December 2025 issue. This one-time change will allow us to keep each new issue live on the magazine’s home page, magazine.swe.org, for roughly the same number of weeks and give readers some fresh content just in time for the holiday season.
Our comprehensive State of Women in Engineering issue will be our first issue of 2026, published in March, followed by Spring, Summer, Conference, and Winter.
Expect the same cadence going forward, and the same commitment to supporting SWE members and their efforts to thrive and succeed at all levels of their education and careers. That will never change.
