Middle schoolers don’t often get the chance to spend the day in a world-class engineering facility learning alongside college students, but last Friday, some Oklahoma students got that unique opportunity.

Gallogly College held its now bi-annual event on Friday for middle school girls to participate in projects as a part of Engineering Week. The day-long workshop, called Girls Learning and Applying Math and Science (or GLAMS), focused on simple design projects that the girls worked on alongside OU engineering students.

The college’s Director of Student Life, Tiffany Smith, said the purpose of the event was to reach out to young women and let them know early that engineering is a potential pathway for them.

“You don’t have to be amazing at math and science to do this,” said Smith, citing the message of the program. “It would be great if you really like it just a little, but give yourself a chance. Anything that you can accomplish, you do it through perseverance.”

Elizabeth Kettler, the mother of a participating student, said that she was thankful for all the effort put in by organizers.

“It’s a proactive reach on their part to find sponsors,” Kettler said. “Boeing sponsored it. It took their initiative to get the girls here and I’m really appreciative of that, so I wanted to shout out [to them].”

According to Smith, the program was first offered as a four-day summer experience in 2011. In 2012, it became a one-day workshop. 2017 is the sixth year of the program’s existence and the first year the program has been offered twice in one year.

For more information, visit http://www.ou.edu/coe/academics/wie/glams.html or contact Tiffany Smith at [email protected].