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On the weekend of May 25-26, U of T Engineering empowered 90 newly admitted female students through a slew of activities at the Girls Leadership in Engineering Experience – also delightfully known as GLEE.

Now in its second year, GLEE is an initiative that aims to inspire graduating female high-school students to join the U of T Engineering community. As Dean Cristina Amon explained, the young women would be joining a community where women are leaders in their field, making a positive impact as educators, researchers and entrepreneurs.

“U of T Engineering is a meeting place for people like you who are seeking new challenges, new ideas and new solutions to help improve the world and our society,” Dean Amon said. “I can only tell you what I honestly believe. That the University of Toronto gives you the greatest range of engineering opportunities of any university in Canada.”

Attendees got the chance to learn more about student life and seek guidance from current engineering students, faculty and alumni. Events included a morning of hands-on workshops, a lunch hosted by the U of T chapter of Women in Science and Engineering (WISE), a panel discussion with successful female alumni, as well as a semi-formal dinner with members of the U of T Engineering community.

The semi-formal was especially exciting, featuring not only a flash mob including members of Skule Nite, but also a flying robot – courtesy of keynote speaker, Assistant Professor Angela Schoellig (UTIAS).

Professor Schoellig, who works at the interface of robotics, controls and learning, demonstrated the robot to show how an engineering innovation like that could one day be applied to address real-world issues, such as search and rescue.

“For me it is important to encourage female students who like math and science to consider engineering as a career path,” said Professor Schoellig. “In my talk, I tried to communicate my passion for engineering and show them that engineering work is innovative, creative, exciting and rewarding.”

That message got across to high school student Cindy Park, who also enjoyed talking to engineering alumni about entrepreneurship. “It was the first time I got a chance to meet women who own their own companies. I never thought about  that as an option, but now I am.”

GLEE follows in the steps of many other initiatives and events that seek to cultivate the next generation of women engineers. Just this Spring, U of T Engineering hosted the first-ever Women in Science and Engineering National Conference. Currently, more than a fifth of the Faculty’s undergraduates are women, while they make up a quarter of graduate students.

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