Testimonials

As my first ever year attending an institution of higher education is finally complete, I can say I have had one of the most fulfilling years of my life. Even with loads of other responsibilities, applying for this fellowship was an extremely crucial opportunity for me, and I am so thankful I reached out to it with grasping arms.

I have not only made fantastic connections with my fellows, but also with our lovely supervisor Fang. The fellows I have worked with are so incredibly gifted and genuine, and I know they are all set for amazing things. Fang is wonderfully sweet and engaging us in her passions is always a priority for her. She is not only a hardworking mother but a determined and focused worker as well, which I admire greatly. The bonds I have made with these coworkers of mine will be carried on with me for the rest of my life, so I am very grateful for having met them and worked alongside them. I've expanded my knowledge on MakerSpace technology tremendously through trainings and activities for AR/VR spaces, 3D Modeling and Printing sessions, as well as FabLab workshops such as woodcutting. These are intriguing opportunities I would never have had the chance to experience previously, and they have only increased my enthusiasm about engaging in my major and future STEM career. Thank you WMP!! (: 

Through this program, I learned how important it is for me to speak up and contribute, especially as a woman in STEM.

I really loved working as a team during the community project, this truly enhanced my communication and leadership skills. Before this, I didn't like to be the leader or responsible for the group, but now I embrace it. And even though the community project was a group effort, as an individual I learned how to effectively follow through with an idea/plan and make better use of my time management.

Furthermore, creating the Girl Scouts Maker Camp taught me a lot about how important it is to be a role model for younger girls and that it is better to share my knowledge and experience with them in hope that it inspires them or even if it just shifts their perceptive of STEM in the slightest.

I am truly grateful for this program and all the lessons I learned from it.

My experience with the Women's Maker Program exceeded my expectations. I learned about the Women's Maker Program from a mass email sent out by one of my professors. I initially thought this opportunity was too good to be true. I enjoyed the driven environment fueled by the desire to learn and grow. Everyone in the cohort was so welcoming and kind. I felt comfortable sharing my ideas and receiving constructive criticism to improve our projects. Overall I felt very accomplished after the final showcase.

This program provided not only the tools and skills of a designer, but also taught me the mindset of a designer. I was able to learn how to identify it and how to approach a solution. I learned how to recognize future users of a solution and to design for those specific users. I had the chance to learn and use a myriad of maker technologies and spent the semester with a cohort of brilliantly intellectual women. This program was an invaluable experience that I'll remember for a lifetime.

The Women's Maker Program gave me an environment to learn without being afraid to make mistakes. Without having my work attached to letters and numbers, I was able to see my errors as room for improvement rather than failures. I hadn't felt comfortable doing this in the past, which is ironic since mistakes are part of everyday life and are perhaps the best way we learn to improve.

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The WMP also gave me a chance to explore and better the world around me. I learned to use different forms of technology that I had not had access to and would not have come across in my undergraduate experience had I not joined the program. This knowledge will be vital considering technology plays a large roll in many, if not all, careers, helping me to not feel intimidated if I encounter them in the future. The community project also helped me feel like I was a part of something greater than myself during my first year of college.

I am so incredibly happy I was able to participate in this program. My ability to use maker mindsets has definitely increased, so challenges do not scare me the way they used to.

After completing the girl scout camp plan and the community project, I have a new sense of confidence in my capabilities. I also loved the opportunities to use maker space technologies and to explore how they work and their real world applications.

I learned a lot of STEM specific things in this program, but I also learned things about hard work in general, and I met incredible friends and mentors in the process.

I definitely enjoyed my experience with this program. From the get-go we were already learning about a handful of maker technologies like 3D modeling and 3D printing, and I loved getting the chance to learn and then print a giraffe using the MakerBot.

After learning these basics, we had the opportunity to create a workshop to teach these maker space skills to middle school girls, which was amazing. I learned more about myself and how to be a better leader, and I'm glad these girls had fun learning about STEM.

Additionally, we partook on a community project to work on and present at the end of the semester. This project was pretty extensive, but I loved the journey and got to make new friends in my team along the way. We brainstormed multiple ideas, went through some ups and downs, but by the end of the program, we created an app prototype using Figma. Being able to actually develop this app and piece together all the screens and whatnot was so cool, and I'm glad I had to opportunity to work on it. I never thought I'd ever have the chance to do this, not until way into the future, but with this program, I was able to work with all sorts of technologies and learn about alternative approaches to developing solutions, and I can now build upon these foundational skills for the future."

From this program, I have learned quite a bit about myself, from my strengths that I would never expect myself to have to weaknesses that I found myself learning to accept and improve upon. I also gained insight into more career opportunities via my beginning mastery of different makerspace technologies and through the speaker sessions done to broaden our perspectives into certain careers, which were extremely insightful. The program has made me think more out of the box as well, pushing for creativity into spaces that I thought were not used. Plus, I gained a great mentor and a wonderful group of friends, all in which have the similar aspirations as I have.