The Engineering Ambassadors hosted information sessions and tours for the Women in Science and Engineering Visitation Day in the McKimmon Center Monday. 

About 60 prospective female students and parents attended the event in hopes of deciding whether N.C. State is the right school for them. 

Students previewed a college class by participating in Mock Engineering 101. Parents and students toured campus, including Lee Hall, where WISE members reside. The event also showcased different departments within the College of Engineering. 

Alice Forgety, director of Recruiting for College of Engineering, planned and coordinated the engineering part of the event. Forgety said her strategy was to showcase the University, WISE and the College of Engineering to parents and students. 

“This is a way that N.C. State sets itself apart from other colleges,” Forgety said.

Forgety said she hopes the prospective students learned about the opportunities that N.C. State has to offer. She said WISE gives everyone a sense of inclusion and has useful resources for students. 

“The WISE program empowers women to do anything they need to do,” Forgety said. 

The WISE program has a retention rate of 50 percent, according to Lauren Kingston, an engineering ambassador and junior in biological and agricultural engineering, who said most WISE students leave the learning village after their freshman year to live in other dorms, such as Bragraw Residence Hall or off-campus apartments.

The program ends after a student’s sophomore year unless they want to return and be a mentor. Kingston also said the WISE program has grown in recent years. 

Kingston said it’s helpful to live around students taking similar course work as a freshman. She said study groups within WISE were helpful when she was told by professors that she was taking a “weed out” engineering class. 

“New experiences like WISE make it easier to transition into college because college can be nerve-wracking,” Kinsgton said.

The College of Engineering has a total of 18 departments with many concentrations according to Kinston, and eight of them were showcased at the event’s Department Info Fair. The departments included computer science, paper science and engineering, industrial, electrical, mechanical, aerospace, biomedical and material science. Representatives from the Career Development Center also educated prospective WISE students about internships and co-ops. 

Susan Matney, associate director of the co-op program, told the prospective students to plan ahead, and she hopes the event educated prospective students about a variety options in the field of engineering 

“We want students to start day one of their freshman year in career searching,” Matney said. 

Jennifer Piercy, director of recruiting for paper science and engineering, referred to the event as a “yielded” event. All attendees have been accepted to the College of Engineering but not all students have made their final decisions. 

“It’s important to show women that we care about them being in science and engineering,” Piercy said. “We will go that extra mile for them.” 

Piercy said most women want to enter fields such as nursing or the nonprofit sector because they want to help people directly and will stray away from science and engineering majors due to its perceived challenges. 

However, many female students tend to gravitate toward paper science, according to Piercy. 

“I think paper science engineering is a challenge, but we’re doing well,” Piercy said.

Piercy said she wants prospective students to know the importance of science and engineering majors, and that the paper science and engineering department at N.C. State is the largest in the country and a top tier program. She said only four other colleges offer degrees in paper science and engineering. 

“This event was definitely worth it,” said Margaret Goetz, a prospective student from Memphis, Tennessee. Goetz said she is still deciding between Virginia Tech and N.C. State. 

Goetz said the tour of Centennial Campus was “phenomenal.”