To encourage high school girls from California’s Central Valley who are interested in pursuing a career in science, technology, engineering or mathematics (STEM) to follow their passions, and to inform them about the necessity of women in these fields, DeVry University (DVU) held their annual HerWorld Conference, at Sonrise Church of Clovis, March 7.

HerWorld started years ago in another state, but when DeVry heard about it, believing that it would benefit any girl interested in pursuing a STEM carer, the staff decided to implement it at many of their locations across the nation. Joseph Coppola, campus president of DVU’s Fresno location believes HerWorld is a great necessity for girls today.

“The main reason that we put this event on is because we want girls to know that they can do STEM careers,” Coppola said. “With the disparity of girls going into the STEM careers, we know that our society really needs that. So many people don’t think they can. My own niece thinks she’s horrible at math and yet I see her math scores and she’s actually pretty good at it. She just doesn’t believe it.”

Coppola desires to see girls realize their capability, even in a male-dominated field of work such as STEM. Although HerWorld is not a Christian-based event, he believes that it can help those in attendance to accomplish the calling that God has their lives.

“For me, it’s just a passion to see anyone that doesn’t think they can do it realize that they can do it,” Coppola said. “I can’t say this representing DeVry, but personally, I know God has plans for them, and when His enemy comes and destroys their confidence, that’s often missed. Today is about getting people back on track for that purpose that God has for their lives.”

FC Academic Adviser Michelle Warkentin first attended HerWorld last year with a group of senior girls. Having enjoyed the event, she decided to take a few girls from the class of 2014, hoping that they would be encouraged by the speakers’ messages and that perhaps the event would give them an idea of what field they want to work in.

“I wanted to take some of our senior girls to this event because I had such a good experience last year and wanted to expose them to careers in STEM,” Warkentin said. “I am hoping they were inspired by the speakers and motivated to pursue careers that they are interested in, even if they are predominately male-dominated careers.”

The event kicked off with a short activity in which the girls split into groups of four and matched STEM careers with their job descriptions, and then matched common products such as cell phones and cosmetic products with just a few of the many STEM careers involved in developing and producing those products.

Once each group had finished their assignment, DeVry faculty member Michelle Bradford introduced the speakers for the day, and the sessions began. Sharon Starcher was the first to give her presentation, with the message that “STEMspiration is all around us,” and that careers in STEM are increasingly being used everywhere you look.

Following Starcher, Tammy Sears, owner of OnSiteComputerTraining.com, spoke to the girls about believing in themselves and countering the reasons why they cannot succeed in their dreams, because success is all about perspective and perception.

Leticia Peters, the keynote speaker for the event, shared about the difficulties she experienced during her teen years in relationships and life choices. Encouraging girls to hold onto the vision that God has given them, and to never let go of that dream. She also shared about how she overcame the odds and eventually gained a career in STEM.

“The company that I used to work for automated and they brought in Windows,” Peters said. “That was a big step, and it was so new. We went from dumb terminals and AS-400s to this Windows program. It was like a caveman seeing fire for the first time.”

Peters believes that women should pursue STEM careers not only because of the way this field has helped her but also because of the limitless opportunity it provides for people willing to work hard and be creative.

“I would encourage girls to go into a STEM field because it’s so diverse,” Peters said. “There are a lot of different branches and different things you can do. The opportunity never ends with a technology career.”

Once the scheduled speakers finished their presentations, tables were dismissed one by one to eat a lunch of salad, sourdough bread rolls, rice pilaf and wood-grilled chicken or steak, catered by Tahoe Joe’s Famous Steakhouse. After the raffle drawing for DeVry merchandise held during the meal, the final activity for the day was introduced.

To apply each area of the STEM fields to a practical project, and to encourage the students of their abilities, each table of girls was given a bipedal robot kit and assigned to build it as a team.

Senior Annalise Rosik was pleased with her team?s performance and the result of their hard work in building the robot, especially since the Fresno Christian table was the first to finish their project.

“The robot’s name is Sheldon and he took a lot of hard work to make,” Rosik said. “We’re all really competitive and even though it wasn’t really a competition of who could build it the quickest, we made it a competition and, for the record, we won.”

Although the robot was Rosik?s favorite part of the event, she also enjoyed spending time with a few of her classmates and listening to what the speakers had to say.

“It was fun hanging out with the group of people that went to the conference,” Rosik said. “We were all there to have fun and to try to learn something from the speakers that were there.”

Warkentin was pleased again with the event and appreciated the effort and excitement her girls showed during the robot activity. Based on what she heard at the conference Warkentin believes that women can work in the STEM fields, especially if that is something that they are passionate about.

“I loved the teamwork I experienced with our girls,” Warkentin said. “We had the task of creating a bipedal robot that walked. We worked so hard to complete this task and had so much fun working together. We ended up being the first group to create a working robot. If girls are at all interested in math and science I think they should pursue careers in these fields,” Warkentin said. “Right now only 25% of people in these fields are woman. This is a sad statistic and I think women have so much to offer to these fields.”

Although the logical approach to the STEM fields that men provide is crucial to success in the work world, Coppola believes that the creativity that women bring to the table is as important, or perhaps even more important to innovation.

“If you think about the right brain and left brain, men tend to be more left-brained and women are more right-brained,” Coppola said. “Left brain is more logical, and right brain is more feeling and creative. If we can get people into these innovative areas that have that creativity, I think they’ll surpass the people who are being purely logical, whether male or female. People who can work well with both sides of their brains are going to come up with ideas that someone who is purely logical is not going to come up with.”

Coppola believes that it is possible to follow your dreams and make money at the same time, especially with the increase of STEM in the workplace, as long as long as one is creative and intelligent.

“STEM is very practical and allows students to find a way to fit their passion so it does make money,” Coppola said. “Maybe you get a degree in electronics but you go and work for a music studio and become the person to develop the next innovation for bows. It’s about finding a way to marry those two, and I think females are better equipped to do that than men. I think there are whole areas that could be different as a result of getting girls into STEM careers.”

This writer can be reached via Twitter: @JennaWeimer42. Follow The Feather via Twitter: at @thefeather.

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