Hello! My name is Ally Lewis and I'm a fifth year in Food, Agricultural and Biological Engineering at Ohio State. Before I got here, I spent four years of high school engineering classes as one of two girls in the room. I got used to it, mostly. But "used to it" isn't the same as belonging, and I spent a lot of those years quietly wondering if I'd picked the wrong thing -- if the fact that nobody around me looked like me meant something about whether I could actually do this.

Then, on one of my first days on campus, I found the Ohio State Society of Women Engineers. I wish I could explain what it felt like to meet them at the involvement fair, or to walk into my first meeting and find a room full of women studying the same things I was, struggling with the same problem sets, asking the same questions I'd been too nervous to ask out loud. My mentor Nicole is the one who pulled me in that day, and she's the reason I applied for things I didn't think I was qualified for. She's also the reason I found food engineering -- a major I didn't know existed until she told me about it. That confidence turned into an engineering co-op with Cargill my sophomore year and internships at Nestlé and PepsiCo. It's how I ended up in undergraduate research as a freshman, and how I've made it far enough to be finishing a thesis now. None of that was on my radar as a high schooler who assumed she was in the wrong room.

The doubt didn't disappear, though, as I still get impostor syndrome. What changed is everything around it: I have people to text at 11pm before an exam who tell me they feel it too, upperclassmen who poured into me, and younger members I now get to pour into in turn. I have role models of every age and background. That's what SWE really gave me -- not a network or a line on a resume, but proof that I was never the only one. 

That's why I'm raising money for our scholarship fund. It goes directly to SWE members who have earned it twice over: women engineers who are excelling in their coursework while giving enormous amounts of themselves to this organization. A scholarship lifts some of the financial weight off their shoulders so they can keep going. Put simply, it keeps women in engineering! 

Every contribution to this fund goes directly toward supporting an engineering student who has more than earned it. If you’re able to give, I would be incredibly grateful. And if you’re not, sharing this page with someone who might be able to contribute means just as much.

Thank you so much for supporting me, SWE, and the women who will come after us!