Black Engineering Week begins at SJSU
SAN JOSE - Black Engineering Week at San Jose State University kicked off Friday to launch eight days of networking and informal and formal events to help Black students connect with industries around Silicon Valley.
The week aims to increase the number of successful African American engineering professionals in the region. As of 2021, only 5% of workers in engineering and architecture jobs in the United States were Black, according to a Pew Research Center study on uneven progress in increasing the gender, racial and ethnic diversity of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) jobs. There has been no change in the share of Black workers in STEM jobs since 2016, the study said.
Friday's kickoff event started with a welcome breakfast and words from Folarin Erogbogbo, a professor of biomedical engineering at SJSU who is working to increase the representation of Black students in science and engineering.
"A lot of companies want to invest in Black students, the easiest way to do it is to say, let's cut a check to the HBCU," he said. But for schools that are not Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), their students get left out.
The motivation behind the week is to broaden the participation of people of African ancestry in engineering, Erogbogbo said. It can also serve as a recruitment and retention tool for SJSU and Silicon Valley companies for that population. The events are designed to expose people to the engineering industry and to build community so that when the students go out to work, it is not as isolated as it is now, he said.
The conference, in partnership with Braven, a nonprofit working to empower underrepresented college students with the skills and networks to transition from college to jobs, will give the students a chance to visit and meet people from companies like Google, Nvidia, Synopsys and Adobe among others for employment opportunities and exposure.
"San Jose State has just untapped potential of diverse students and are often under resourced and overlooked," said Diana Phuong, executive director of Braven in the Bay Area. "One of things our organization does is we provide the confidence, the skills, the experiences and the social networks that maybe some of our first-generation low-income students of color lack."
Oftentimes for Black students, there's stereotype threat and imposter syndrome, Phuong said. Last year, the conference gave the students a chance to express themselves and tell their stories.
"Throughout my entire class...I'm in my last year of my master's, I'm the only black person," said Osazae Aiguwurhuo, a graduate student in industrial and system engineering. "It's been a great six months creating events like this. We're bringing these professionals from Silicon Valley that are Black and bringing them here to these events to meet students...and create a community that shows them, yes, there's actually a pathway to success in Silicon Valley as a Black person."
The biggest challenge, according to Erogbogbo, is increasing the number of Black students in engineering and science and Black professionals in the area.
"It is easier for us to get more Black students from New York than it is to get from Bay Area universities. So, it just shows you how bad the problem is," he said. "So, trying to address that issue in its own right can be very challenging because everyone that wants to sponsor or do things, they want large numbers. But with the numbers being so abysmal, that's the biggest challenge."
One of the things Erogbogbo is excited about is that SJSU is taking the lead in pushing this kind of initiative forward.
"We want it to be like even if you could be in your class and say, oh, at least I know four other black students then there's five of you in your engineering class, that's a very hard target for us to actually hit, and it'll be a good long-term goal."
