Dear AWE Community,
At the start of the semester in August, I wrote in our newsletter how grateful I was that AWE had been the one unchanged thing I could depend on throughout many months of shelter-in-place. 13 weeks later, I am proud to say that AWE has not only continued all of our events and programs remotely, but we have expanded and delivered countless new events and initiatives.
Recently, I’ve been packaging stickers to send out to everyone. As I go through the names, it makes me really happy to see how many people I’ve gotten to know throughout the past 4 years in AWE and yet also how many new members there are. We’ve welcomed over 400 active members this semester, nearly 100 of which are participating in our Mentorship program. As a mentor myself, I’ve loved getting to know my two amazing mentees while also meeting so many other mentorship groups through our double dates and socials.
With members around the country and world, our Slack is thriving as our primary platform for communication and community. We’ve sent 10,000 messages in the last month alone! Resource channels like #recruiting have seen an explosion of questions and advice around navigating job applications and interviews, while fun channels like #awemong-us and #donut-be-lonely have become a great place to make new friends. It’s been heartwarming to see everyone uplifting each other whether it’s comforting someone who is after a challenging midterm or helping celebrate someone’s offer. The supportiveness of the AWE community has always been my favorite thing about being a part of AWE and I’m thankful to everyone who is contributing.
Building community in a remote environment is challenging, but we’ve invested a lot of energy both over the summer and throughout the semester into making everything happen. Internally, we were excited to welcome 18 new Committee members. They have been working closely with our AWEfficer team to help run our Mentorship program, host socials, compile technical resources, write blogs, design banners and stickers, create infographics, plan alumni events, and add new features to our AWEbot. I want to commend our AWEfficer team for their dedication and leadership. AWE has set a very high bar for the quality of our online events and resources and it’s been cool to be able to share our model with other organizations looking to us for guidance.
We’re always looking to improve though, so I want to hear from you! What can we do to make the rest of your semester as AWEmazing as possible? Email me at president@awe.studentorg.berkeley.edu, DM me on Slack, or leave our team anonymous feedback with AWEbot with the /awefeedback general command.
Finally, if you haven’t been as active in AWE as you would like to be, it’s not too late! We have several more exciting weeks of events coming up including our General Member meeting tomorrow, EECS Community Week, another Teatime, a research panel, more socials, and lots of AWEccountability study hours to help you get prepared for finals. I look forward to seeing you at all our upcoming events!
Cheers,
Cara
About the Author
Cara is currently a senior studying Computer Science and Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies. She is proudly serving as the President of AWE.