On March 1st, 22 girls- all part of the engineering program- attended a field trip to visit the American Museum of Science and Energy at Oak Ridge, as well as Y-12. The field trip was put together by Mrs. Harris.

The girls began their trip at the American Museum of Science and Energy in Oak Ridge where they got to wander the museum, as well as see a few videos. The group then went to a panel with 8 female engineers, as well as 100+ other girls at Y-12. The engineers talked about their experience in the field, as well as their personal life.

After the panel, the girls were allowed to walk around to about 20 or more different booths, all advertising different types of engineering and different colleges for them to choose from.

Brittany Mayfield (10) said her favorite part was how many opportunities she had to talk with successful female engineers, and how interesting it was to see how many women are actually interested in the male-dominated field of engineering.

“It’s a field that really interests me,” Mayfield said, “I don’t really fit in with any other professions. Engineering just seems to click.”

Beccah Blevins (12) also attended the trip. “I liked discovering different types of engineering that I didn’t know existed, like fire protection engineering,” she said.

Blevins says she wants to go into engineering because she likes solving problems, challenging herself, and working with other people. “I want to go into chemical engineering; chemistry makes sense to me and I’d like to work with it,” she said.
This trip was planned to give girls more information on engineering and STEM fields, as well as inspire them to pursue that career path. Personally, I really enjoyed the trip. It was very inspiring to meet so many strong female engineers and see what I would be doing in the real world if I were to become an engineer.