Free Engineering Graduate Studies Workshop: UMass Amherst

 This is a professional development event for students of color, women, LGBTQIA, and other underrepresented students who may be interested in pursuing graduate school, especially for PhDs in engineering. Students at all levels (freshman through senior and Masters) are welcome to attend. The event is planned for Friday, January 31st, 2020. There will be no cost to the students and we will provide some travel expenses.

Often women and Under-Represented Minorities don’t feel confident in pursuing graduate school due to a lack of role models. We hope that by providing information, as well as panels including women and URMs, we can help encourage you to apply for graduate school and prestigious fellowships.

This event will include:

  • A session on applying to grad school and securing funding, with a focus on applying to the NSF GRF;
  • A panel on navigating grad school when you are under-represented in the field;
  • A poster session to get a sense of the wide range of topics of study in engineering;
  • One on one meetings with UMass College of Engineering faculty; and
  • Lunch and a tour of facilities here.

In April, 2019, participants included undergraduate students from CUNY, Brown University, Northeastern University, and UMass Amherst. From our anonymous survey, 100% of participates would definitely encourage other students to participate in the future event. They all found the event very useful.

Students are not required to present a poster, but are welcome to if they are interested in participating. Moreover, faculty members who would like to attend and meet one-on-one with students from a number of universities are welcome.

Please email Promise Mchenga, Assistant Director for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (pmchenga@umass.edu) and/or Associate Dean Erin Baker (edbaker@ecs.umass.edu) for any questions that you have regarding this event.