Alpha Omega Epsilon is a professional and social sorority founded in 1983 that promotes friendship, leadership and professionalism to all members of the organization, the community and our professions.
Sisterhood and Professionalism
As a sister in AΩE for all four years I spent at UD, I gained friendships that will last a lifetime. Being a sorority based on women in STEM, I was able to meet women like me dedicated to education and professionalism. We formed study groups, attended classes together, and supported each other throughout our toughest classes. I can't even imagine going through four years of engineering without the support that I had from my sisters in AΩE. I also learned a lot about professionalism through a series of workshops that are hosted at our chapters like resume building and interview tips. I am so grateful to be part of such an amazing organization and to serve them as a chair and executive board member.
Fundraising Chair
I served as our chapter's fundraising chair for the 2020-2021 school year. During this time I was responsible for holding a variety of fundraisers throughout the year and tracking participation. I also added fundraisers for our philanthropy, First Robotics, to the job description of the fundraising chair that has carried on past my term. This position taught me more about budgeting money as I had to make sure we earned certain amounts each semester. This became very useful as I transitioned into my next role in AΩE.
Membership Educator
The membership educator is an executive board position and is responsible for everything to do with new members. This includes the membership development process, three sorority wide events, and attending fraternity and sorority leadership and learning workshops each semester. I was elected to this position for the 2021-2022 school year.
Executive Board
As an executive board member, I work with a team of 6 women to oversee the sorority as a whole. This involved weekly meetings and often emergency meetings to address issues within the sorority. This was one of the most challenging parts of this position for me as I had to balance my relationships with sisters while still upholding and enforcing our sorority rules. The biggest thing I took away from the experience is how to be open and honest about everything and explain clearly where I am coming from, specifically between as a friend to as an executive board member. Throughout my term, our executive board was presented with a lot of challenges that our chapter had not experienced before in which we worked closely with our national board and chapter advisor. The process taught me a lot about the professional processes behind running such a large scale organization and gave me a greater appreciation for everyone on the national board and everyone who served as our chapters executive board before me.
Membership Development
The largest portion of the membership educators duties are dedicated to membership development and preparing the membership candidates to be initiated as active sisters of AΩE. This involves weekly meetings with them that includes lessons on the sorority and quizzes, tracking their progress through the 6 week process and ensuring that they are hitting the marks for all the requirements, promoting relationships among the pledge class and sisters, and supporting them though either myself or making sure that they are paired with an active sister who is constantly checking on them. Going into the position, I severely underestimated the amount of time and work that this would take. However, it really forced me to improve on my time management and organization even more. The process isn't always the easiest, so I was expected to be available for them at all times as a lot of them needed extra support and sometimes just a person to talk to and help work through problems with. I learned to be very flexible and understanding as I wanted their first experiences in AΩE to be the best.
Sorority Events
Within the position, I was responsible for hosting three sorority wide events including our bid party, day away, and the final portion of the membership process. Each of these took a ton of planning which was right up my alley. Bid party allowed me to get creative and I pride myself on hosting the first bid party of its kind that sisters expressed lots of love for as well as continuing it the next semester. This event is centered on welcoming the new membership candidates and promoting relationships among them and the sisters. After the event ended, I was flooded with people telling me how much they enjoyed it and it warmed my heart and made every difficult part of the job worth it. The largest event that I plan is day away which is a weekend trip for the entire sorority so it involves planning a very detailed itinerary, creating carpools for 100 people, food arrangements, and so much more. This is the first time I have planned an event to this scale and worked with venues outside of the university which provided me with a lot more professional skills. I also learned to be prepared for anything and the importance of adaptability. With such a large event, it is inevitable that something will go wrong and on my first ever day away that I ran, it seemed that everything out of my control went wrong. I was pushed to my limits and came out on top with valuable lessons on problem solving and conflict management.
