Halloween Philanthropy Events

During the last week of October, SWIB kicked off its philanthropy efforts with two fun-filled, Halloween-themed events. The first was held at HomeSafe San Jose, a shelter for victims of domestic violence, and the second took place at the San Jose Family Shelter for homeless families. SWIB-ers had a blast celebrating Halloween with the kids, helping them decorate mini pumpkins, create personalized trick-or-treating bags, and get their faces painted (in some cases, they were the ones painting our faces!). We hope to see you at future philanthropy events, so stay tuned!

11/9-10: SWIB Retreat

In celebration of SWIB’s new Associate class of 2007-2008, we invited these twenty outstanding ladies to join the leadership board on our first-ever retreat. Special thanks to our presidents Ooshma and Anjali who organized the retreat. Our night started off with a long surprise – a Hummer Limo picked us up and sent us for dinner at a hip restaurant named “Fahrenheit” in downtown San Jose. After dinner, the limo took us to a lovely beach house in Santa Cruz that overlooked the boardwalk. The retreat was a memorable night for all of us and upon returning to campus the next morning, we knew each other a little better and were ready to kickoff a strong year together.

11/13: Business Bites with Dana Nguyen `07 (Co-founder of Stanford Women in Business)

We were all glad to have Dana back as our first SWIB Business Bytes speaker of the year. Dana is our former president who helped SWIB grow from a newly established club into a Dean's award-winning student group last year. She graduated with a degree in Electrical Engineering and is now a Marketing Associate at Google.

Dana spoke to our ladies about the challenges of transitioning from Stanford to the workplace. She told us about work at Google, what her responsibilities were as a new-graduate and how the dynamics were like at the professional workplace. She also shared with us her own reflection back on Stanford, what she got out of her academics, of opportunities beyond the classroom and of course, what SWIB meant to her.

Dana was an engaging speaker, and from her talk, we gained insight into what to expect and how to prepare for life after Stanford. This made us re-evaluate our goals and rethink how we can achieve those goals by taking advantage of the opportunities available through Stanford and SWIB.

Pre-Finals Week: Associate Package Pick-up Day

It was the midst of finals week, yet busy and stressed as we all were, the board put together a special package for the loved associates. The bags consisted of holiday goodies, SWIB coffee mugs and an Associate Handbook. We called in our Associates at 6pm when it was cold and dark, and one by one, they came in to pick up their holiday bags, welcoming the warm SWIB surprise as we wished each other “good lucks” on the rest of our exams and “happy holidays” for the long awaited winter break.