Future engineers work on building networks

Chatting, laughing and munching on hors d'oeuvres, about 65 of the School of Engineering and Applied Science's brightest women gathered at the Inn at Penn on Tuesday night. But at the Society of Women Engineers' fourth annual Corporate Dinner, the atmosphere was not purely social. Hopeful students arrived to meet representatives from -- or better yet, to score an internship with -- seven of the nation's top corporations. "You never know who you're going to meet," said junior chemical engineering major Claire Pinto, who has attended several internship fairs. "Right now I don't know what I'm going to be doing after graduation, but it helps to get your name out," she added. The evening began with hors d'oeuvres to give students and corporate representatives an opportunity to mingle. During the dinner and dessert that followed, guests sat at different tables with different mixtures of students and recruiters for each course. Many students, like Engineering sophomore Geeta Bhargave, said they attended the dinner for the experience rather than for an internship opportunity. "I just want to get networking experience, see what's out there," Bhargave said. But other students were a little more ambitious, showing up with leather portfolios and resumes. And according to Scott Freidman, the representative from IBM, remembering a face from a corporate event often does help distinguish some from the sea of resumes. Friedman said that IBM looks for strong academic performance and previous internship experience in its candidates. But in the end, face recognition can clinch a position for a candidate. "If I can associate people I meet with resumes I have in hand, it helps," Friedman said. "Any opportunity to associate a name with a face helps." The representatives from UNISYS -- which has a long-standing partnership with the Engineering School -- said its recruiters are eager to hire Penn students, especially women. Dianne Schaefer, a Penn alumna and software engineer at UNISYS, said that while gender is not considered in the hiring process, being a woman in a male-dominated field does bring certain advantages. "Women engineers do lend a different perspective than men," Schaefer said. "We tend to be more vocal and have better teaming skills." SWE president Merav Kushner -- who landed an internship with First USA at last year's corporate dinner -- said that being a woman in the field of engineering is "definitely an asset." But Kushner described moments during her internship when women, sometimes greatly outnumbered, would be harassed by their male counterparts. The ratio of women to men engineers in large corporations varies. But in corporations like Lockheed Martin, which have fewer women, experienced women serve as mentors for the newcomers -- according to some students. "I went through about seven interviews, and one of them was with a woman, and she was already trying to act as my mentor," said Engineering senior Judy Evans, who will intern at Lockheed Martin this summer. This is the first year that SWE has held its Corporate Dinner at the Inn at Penn. "We're trying to make the event a little more upscale," Kushner said.