Join Onshape’s Newest User Group—Women Who CAD

Katie_Gosbee

Onshape user groups are a great way to build relationships with other users. We are excited to announce that Onshape is forming a new user group — Women Who CAD! 

The mission of this group is to promote inclusion and diversity amongst the Onshape users and make sure everyone feels welcome in our community.

Our first virtual meetup will be January 5th @ 6pm ET. We are also still looking for a user group leader. 

If you would like to join or know of others who may be interested please reach out to usergroups@onshape.com or reply to this forum and we will connect with you. Onshape will provide video technology for the virtual meetings and will help with technical sessions and/or Partner presentations. We will continue to offer support after the pandemic has passed.

We can’t wait to see you in January! Here is the signup link and the preliminary agenda: 

5:45pm to 6:05pm - Optional networking
6:05pm to 6:20pm - Featured Speaker Elise Moss
6:20pm to 6:40pm - Onshape Technical Session by Katie Huffman
6:40pm to 6:50pm - Break/Questions
6:50pm to 7:15pm - Onshape Technical Session by Lindsay Early and Jenny Johnson
7:15pm to 7:30pm - Closing remarks, leadership search
7:30pm to 8:00pm - Networking/Leadership discussion

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwtdOitqz4uGNLt1AUIPCrwPNkPnuL-OMvw 

matthew_stacy

@Katie_Gosbee good on you!  Is participation limited to women?  The mission statement sounds admirable.  Way back in the day, I graduated in a cohort of mechanical engineers that included only 1 woman.  Hopefully significant progress has been made since then.

Katie_Gosbee

Hi @matthew_stacy, thank you for your support! Women Who CAD aims to have women as speakers and leaders, but all are welcome to be a part of the group and attend the meetups.

john_mceleney

I love it!

Ste_Wilson

@matthew_stacey unfortunately my own experinace as an engineering lecturer of college students for the last ten years would suggest that significant progress has not been made since then. I'm lucky if I have 1-3 young women in a year group. 

matthew_stacy

@Ste_Wilson, what are your thoughts on how our current trajectory might be bent in a more positive direction?  Seems like we are all shaped by cultural biases from date of birth onward.  The toys we are given.  the games we are taught.

Ste_Wilson

@matthew_stacy it's a good question.. Massive social reform so shoes for small girls are waterproof and practical and not just pretty because there is more to aspire than being a princess and go from there? I think your right on the toys, toys marketed to girls seem to be more passive than toys marketed to boys (observations from having two young boys).. Even lego has gone pink . More role models are always good.. (cbeebies starting to do a good job, graces amazing machines, bitz and bob, maddie's 'do you know?') I think the other part of the equation, at least in the uk, is the image problem with engineering itself.. It's perceived as being about fixing car engines..and it's boring! 
Apologies for hijacking the thread. 

Evilegi

Hi Katie! I can't promise I'll be super active as I'm extremely busy but I'd love to join!

From my experience even if young women, like myself, pursue engineering the majority of them who make it to graduation don't want to become engineers afterwards. I graduated in 2014 with a degree in Mechanical Engineering as one of only 5 women and when I asked the two other females I was closer to why they said that they just said it wasn't in their interest. I grew up a tom boy with 95% of my friends being male because I had no interest in the drama and mean ways girls generally attack each other at a younger age. I'm not sure if that's why I was more passionate about technology and machines than other females or if it's just my nature as I like to be well rounded and learn about anything and everything (even "girly" things). Hard to push people who don't have an interest in engineering to do it though and perhaps that is why things aren't changing as quickly as others would like it to.

I did notice that even after getting into engineering professionally I was being paid much less than my friends I graduated with and they also were promoted way sooner than I was even though I was a proven rock star at the company I joined and was ambitiously working with my boss to try to get the promotion. I think it had mainly to do with the company way of doing business. 

richard_doyle

Here is the registration link for the January 5th meeting - https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwtdOitqz4uGNLt1AUIPCrwPNkPnuL-OMvw

The agenda is still being put together, but the rough outline is there. 

If you are interested in becoming a member of the group but cannot attend the first meeting, please register anyway so we will be able to keep you informed about future events.

Richard

Heather_Taft

I'm interested! Through college, I was part of women in engineering groups, but that always felt really general. Professionally, I haven't worked with many women who's work was primarily design/CAD. Fortunately, I've worked with several women co-ops over the last couple years so there seems to be hope for growth.

Katie_Gosbee

Hi @Evilegi and @Heather_Taft I'm happy to hear that you two are interested in joining! Thank you so much for sharing your stories. Feel free to follow this link to register for our first meetup: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwtdOitqz4uGNLt1AUIPCrwPNkPnuL-OMvw. We are also excited to announce our guest speaker will be Elise Moss!

Katie_Gosbee

I'm happy to announce we have a bio for our guest speaker for the January meetup:

Elise Moss is President of Moss Designs, a Silicon Valley firm that specializes in creating custom applications and designs for corporate clients. A third-generation engineer with decades of experience, Elise is also a renowned author, writing engineering related articles for some of the top CAD publications.
 
Utilizing her years of experience with a wide variety of CAD systems, Elise began teaching CAD classes - most recently at Laney College in Oakland. In addition, she has led multiple user groups to help designers and engineers improve their skills, and to connect her students to industry professionals.
 
Elise is married with three sons and is currently enjoying traveling the US with her husband and their horses. She will be joining the meeting from wherever she may be at the time.

adam_good

Hi Katie,

I'm a middle school teacher in Aspen, CO and we have several female students who love working with Onshape! Would this be suitable for students 10-14 years old?

Cristina_Seckinger

Hi @adam_good ,
Answering for Katie.  Your students are welcome to register and attend. They can decide if it's of interest while on the Zoom call, and they don't have to stay on the whole time if they decide if it's not a good fit for them. This is quite casual and they may just enjoy hearing from women in engineering. No pressure!
Cristina Seckinger

richard_doyle

FYI - https://www.onshape.com/en/resource-center/innovation-blog/announcing-the-new-women-who-cad-onshape-user-group

katie_gosbee098

Another update- We have a summary for another of the talks we will be featuring:

Onshape’s Lindsay Early will present “Creating High-Performance Assemblies”, and Onshape’s Jenny Johnson will present “Creating High-Performance Parts”. Each session is designed to show you techniques that will help speed up modeling and reduce regeneration times.

richard_doyle

Today is the day - the first meeting of the Women's Onshape User Group. 

A keynote by Elise Moss, and technical sessions by Katie Huffman, Lindsay Early, and Jenny Johnson.  Nearly 50 have registered so far.

More information and a link to registration here - https://www.onshape.com/en/user-group-network/womens

richard_doyle

I thought the meeting went very well.

Any comments from attendees?  What did you think?

Richard

Katie_Gosbee

Thank you to everyone who came! We had a wonderful turnout and amazing speakers. I am looking forward to our next meeting, which will be happening in March. Be on the lookout for more updates! If you missed coming to to the inaugural meeting but want to be kept up to date, send an email to usergroups@onshape.com

richard_doyle

The next meeting will be held March 24th, more details soon.

If you missed the first one, catch a replay here - https://www.onshape.com/en/resource-center/videos/women-who-cad-onshape-user-group

Richard