SWENext High School Leadership Academy (SHLA)

I plan on shaping my engineering career so that I can use it to help my community.

It was an inspiring session, especially since the guest speaker was someone of our own age. It really motivated me to work hard and not give up until I succeed in inventing a solution.

"Being able to connect with people, old and young outside my country, ethnicity and race was one of the most important and captivating things I gained from the program."

SWENext Connect sessions are always the highlight of my day! :-)

This was so fun, I loved being able to just get one on one conversation with mentors, to ask questions but also just to get inspiration and understanding on possible future paths. I loved the diversity in the different career paths and futures so you were able to find the right person to ask the right stuff to.

[Participating in the "Why Engineering is a Great Choice" session] was a great to start deciding what field of engineering I like.

I feel really comfortable here, and I am super thankful for everyone for making me feel at home <3

I love science (hoping to go into engineering in the future), but also love to play piano and perform. This has been my favorite session because it was one of the most relatable for me. I learned how to navigate these two passions of mine from the speaker.

I really loved the spot coaching because it made me feel like my thoughts were valid. It was amazing.

It was so encouraging! Even though I didn’t get a chance to talk to [the speaker, Dina Scippa] directly, listening to everyone’s stories made me feel so inclusive and comfortable with my story.

I learned that there are many positive engineering role models in the world that I didn't really knew existed! I hope that someday soon I will be able to have a great female mentor to be inspired from if I continue to study engineering when I attend college in two years!

I learned that we can make our origin stories whatever we need them to be in order to keep ourselves motivated. We can define ourselves in any way that we want to, not by the limitations that we think are already set on us.

[The speaker, Tamara Robertson,] is the female engineering figure that I never knew I needed. Her words of wisdom were so valuable!