Forging a Path Towards a Better Future (S9 E3)

This week, on Season 9 Episode 3 of the ShermCast, hosts Vaughn Williams and Liam MacMahon interview Forge—the Sherman Center’s premiere program and Northeastern's home for young builders, entrepreneurs, and leaders—Executive Director Jessica Posmantier, Foundations Director Sean Suleski, and Product Lab Director Abigail Kazan.Learn more about Forge:
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Transcript

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Hello and welcome to Season nine Episode three of The ShermCast. I'm Vaughan. Williams. And I'm Liam MacMahon. On today's episode, we got the chance to interview three members of the Sherman Center's Forge program. Let's jump right in. Registration for the spring semester is coming up. Make sure to check out our Sherm courses, which include customer driven technical innovation, engineering product design methodology, interactive product prototyping for engineers, and finally, product development for engineers. Don't miss your chance to sign up. Hello. Right now we have the pleasure of interviewing three members from Forge, which is Northeastern's home of builders, entrepreneurs and leaders. Here today. We have the executive director, Jess Posmantier, Abby Kazan, the product lab director, and Sean Suleski, the foundation's director. How are we all doing today? Good, thank you. Pretty good. Very good. So just to start us off, can you guys each explain what Forge is? Well, because I accidentally memorized our vision statement and I guess I'll recite that. Forge is a diverse, collaborative and passionate product development community focused on teaching entrepreneurial and engineering skills to empower the next generation of innovators. So that's forged in a nutshell. But like I talked about. In a in your own words type of way. We are a no experience required club, mostly aimed at those younger students who are trying to get into product development who maybe don't have the confidence. They think they don't have the skills to kind of get into the space. So we are there to them, to be there, for them to inspire and empower them so that they can, you know, make their own products, either a personal project or other clubs or, you know, get them, you know, going ahead for co-ops and things like that. Yeah, we really focus on teaching those skills through teamwork. That's a big thing for us is like being on a team outside of projects just in coursework like Cornerstone, for example, for engineering students and giving them those like first initial skills that they would really make them stand out for co-op applications for just any really opportunities that come ahead for them. Fascinating. So can you go into some of the opportunities that Forge has to offer for its members? I'll do mine yours. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So within Forge, we kind of have three different sectors. So we have the product lab, which is kind of the meat and potatoes of Forge. And then we have foundations which Sean can touch on after. And then we have community engagement. Just to touch on that briefly, we have operations and engagement, which kind of obviously operations deals with the day to day operations, purchasing, finances, things like that. And then we have community engagement, which is a branch that focuses on, I mean, engaging the community. We have a lot of community events, fun things planned just to have people bond. And then obviously that in turn makes better projects, makes better teams, things like that. But to talk about the product lab, like I said, it is the meat and potatoes. It's definitely the largest sector of Forge. We have three hardware teams and one software team currently. This is our first semester having a software team and it's been going really well. They're building our website actually, which will be hopefully launched at the end of the semester. But to sum it up, we have four product lab lead positions. So those four people are leading teams in the product development process. And then on each team we have six product lab members. A majority of them are definitely engineering students. And then we have some more diverse representation from the School of Design, some business students, just to bring in those all those different perspectives. And yeah, each team is just going through the entire product development process in one semester, learning those hands on skills and then being reinforced by foundations which Sean can talk about. Yeah. So foundations at its core is a supportive group to help the product lab teams. So there are five specialists that each have like their own area of expertise. There is mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, software design and entrepreneurship. So the specialist will host workshops almost every week. There's six of them in total, six weeks in total. So there's a hardware one and a software one at the same time every time. So we have those give or teach skills to these younger members, such as Machining and G.A. we just had, and another one was prototyping in Figma. So those are the ones we had last week. We had things like Arduino, Onshape Ideation, things like that, just to help out the product lab teams so they can figure out what they're doing in there and their projects. Outside of the workshops, though, the specialists are also just mentors in the space. So any time that any team has questions about like direction or scope or how they can get things done, the specialists are like the place to go to get that information. Oh, wow. You guys got a lot a lot going on. And you said you don't need any, like, hands on experience. Correct. So how do you guys anyone can answer this question? How do you guys go about mentoring people who have no experience and are just getting started? Yeah. I think what's really helpful is the combination of the specialists and the project leads. I think the most direct relationship that you'll have is a product a lab member will be to your project lead, because that's like the team meetings that you have weekly, twice weekly, actually. You're going to be following what they're saying and, you know, learning along with them. But also outside of leading the projects, the technical skills are mostly taught by the specialists because they just have the higher knowledge. Like we said, it's no experience required. So the project leads don't necessarily need the technical experience. On the technical side, they just the leadership, that experience there is what gets them in the position. It's mostly interest and how much they're passionate about it. So where we get that experience is generally the specialists. Yeah, and just to add to that, one nice thing about Forge is that you got, you get a lot of mentoring from your direct lead, like Sean said. So for example, Jess, being the executive director has done a lot of leadership trainings and mentoring for Sean, myself and Campbell, who are the other directors. And then in turn on the opposite end, I provide leadership, mentoring and training for my project leads the same way Sean does for his specialists, and then it's kind of like a trickle down effect, so everyone learns from their direct lead and of course the entire organization. But that's definitely something that has been really helpful for us and also for a lot of our members. Yeah. I think also to add on that's probably my favorite part of Forge is just the amount of leadership experience and learning about all things. Leadership is just it's all come from Forge for me, for my whole college experience. It's it's been like the most surreal experience just like working my way up in Forge and I started, I was like a marketing specialist and then worked my way up to like what was what was the outreach director and is now what Campbell's doing, which is the community engagement director. And now I'm the executive director and I learn everything from the person who lead me before. So it's a cool trickle down effect. So can you go into more of the speaker series program that Forge has to offer for its people and just provide the valuable skills that they need to know? Yeah. So the speakers that we have are from relevant industry members. So this is usually from people who have been working. They're not like in college anymore. So the first one we had was Kirk Compton. He is a business director at a generative AI company, So he was able to talk to us about, you know, what generative AI is and how that can be helpful for businesses in the future. And it's just generally helpful to talk to these people to get an understanding of what their work is like beyond school, because that is one of our big focuses is growth and development, and we want to be able to prepare our members for the future beyond school and how they can be successful. So getting to hear these like insider information about like the lives and the experience of these people who have gone through it before is is really helpful. Now we also have local entrepreneurs. So our next and last speaker series, we're going to have Jason Ray, the co-founder and CEO of a local startup called Paperless Parts, which is where I'm actually currently co-oping. And he sat all of the new hires down one day and my first couple of weeks on the co-op and told us his story of just like how you got Paperless Parts going and where where he was now, where he is. And it was so inspiring to me that I was like, Can you please come talk to Forge? I am a part of this amazing program and I really would love all of our members to hear about it, So I'm really looking forward to that one. My gosh, You guys mentioned how Forge prioritizes growth and development, and so I'd like to touch upon you three as individuals. How has Forge personally impacted you and has how have you grown since joining? I can start. So Forge has had a tremendous impact on me as an individual, as a professional or young professional and as a college student. It's definitely been one of the most impactful experiences in my last 3, 2ish years here. So I started as a product lab member my spring semester of my freshman year, so it was the first club I joined, the first team I was a part of. I knew absolutely nothing going into that team. But like we've touched on many times, I got a lot of hands on experience, a lot of technical experience, even just like working on a team on a project, like I said, outside of coursework, really just like got the ball rolling for me the next semester. As a first semester sophomore, I was interested in a leadership position as I have always been and I considered applying for a project lead. My lead the previous semester was a fifth year and so were all of the other leads. So I was a bit hesitant, but I actually reached out to the executive director at the time and asked him about the potential of being a lead as a second year with not much leadership experience and not much technical experience as well. I applied and got the role and actually Sean was on my team that semester. That was the beginning of that, but that was my first real leadership role. I really, really enjoyed it. Honestly, looking back, I think back to it and I'm like, I had no idea what I was doing. I had none of the skills I have now. I don't know how I made it work, but I did and I really liked it. And then the next semester I decided to take a break from Forge and I joined Generate, which definitely has a higher barrier to entry. But I have to say Forge is definitely what made me stand out, what gave me that experience, things to talk about and also just got me involved in the Sherman Center got me knowing people like making those connections and I really enjoyed Generate. I definitely grew a lot technically there. And then thinking back to the impact that Forge made upon me, I decided to apply to be the product lab director of Forge, which I mean, here I am. So that's how it went and it has had a huge, huge impact on me, obviously the technical skills and the leadership skills, but also just personal life. I've made so, so, so many friends that are like some of my closest friends in college and people that I definitely will be friends with the rest of my life. Specifically, like the management team on Forge, We we worked all summer and we just got really, really close really fast and it has been like absolutely amazing to have people like with the same goals, with the same interests and, you know, things like that. So that's been really amazing. And other than that, it's just it's helped me get both of my co-ops. It's helped me in all, all of my pursuits. So, yeah, I really can't even put into words how much it has impacted me. Wow. That made me so happy. Yeah. I mean, I kind of already touched on this, but it definitely has impacted me, I think, way more than I've reflected on. I was a pretty, um, I was pretty big into leadership in high school. I had also started a club at my high school, a mental health club. So I had a little bit of experience like leading. I was also like the captain of the swim team and all that, so I knew I wanted to lead at Northeastern. But the thing about Northeastern is everyone here was were leaders in their in their high school, and everyone has all this experience. And so if you put all these accomplished students into one place, it's really daunting. Like you feel like you can't really do anything. And so I think Forge was such like a breath of fresh air of like it's very I don't know if we really went over this, but like Forge started in January 2021. So it's really fresh and new. It's like post-COVID new. So I think just like the low barrier to entry, like the amount of growth that this club has gone through and just the amount of growth that the club has allowed me to go through is just really surreal. And I feel like I've grown with the club, especially this semester. I mean, I am so proud of all three of you guys. Sean Campbell, Abby, like all three of them have just shined brighter than anything I could imagine. And I'm just really looking forward to what else this semester? Well, this year will have in store for us, so. Yeah, no, Forge has definitely had a huge impact on my outside life because, you know, this will, I think, carry on for sure. I joined Forge a couple of years ago now. It was the fall of my sophomore year. I'm a fourth year now, so I like Abby. I didn't really know what was going on. I had just came from like my first year. During COVID, I learned a little bit from Cornerstone, but I had never done anything engineering wise before college, and it was a little daunting to me that, like all these people in Cornerstone, seemed to know what they were doing, and I'm like trying to figure it out, but I didn't think I was quite there yet, so I didn't feel confident enough to like, apply to other clubs like Generate or things like that. But I saw that Forge was here and, you know, I said, maybe I'll take a stab. And I got in and I did it that semester and I learned a whole lot. The project lead that semester was really, really cool. He was a fifth year as well, and he definitely inspired me. He like I saw I saw him do some CAD and I was like, Wow, this is what like mechanical engineering can be. That's so cool. So this first project definitely helped me get my first co-op my third year, and then I took a break from Forge the spring of my sophomore year. But then once I was on co-op, I was like, Oh man, I really want some more freedom and do another project again. So I joined again. This is last fall now, and low and behold, Abby was my project lead. So that was a super, super fun time. I think that semester was like the cherry on top for Forge for me. I learned so, so much technically that semester. I didn't know how to 3D print or anything like that, so I learned how to 3D print, I learned how to solder. I was very involved in that, that project. So, you know, I was able to build up the confidence from that semester to then join Generate last spring. So this is now the spring semester I joined Generate. That was a super, super fun experience as well. I grew immensely technically like night and day from, from that semester. And then at the end of that semester though, I was thinking like, Forge is what got me here. I feel like it's only right to kind of go back and like now that I've learned so much and gained so much from Forge, I want to be able to give that back. I want to to some capacity just be here for other people. So that's why I applied to the foundation's director, so that I can be the one leading the specialists, but generally leading the charge for, you know, that mentorship and, you know, building that foundation of skills and confidence and inspiration for the new members. Amazing to hear all your success stories. You all mentioned briefly how being part of Forge helped you off your co-ops, but can you go more into detail about the specific process of the skills that Forge helped with getting your co-ops and just work experience in general? Yeah. So I can start with that. Actually, Forge has had like the utmost impact compared to anything else and getting both of my co-ops. So the first time I was looking for any like product development. So just for some background, I'm a bioengineering major and I'm focused in medical devices, which is kind of pretty like mechi. I mean, mechanical engineering, heavy. So my first co-op round, I was nervous about the same thing that other people are nervous about the GPA, the courses, the experience, all of that. But early on in my interview process, I learned that anyone that everything that anyone was interested in was my project experience. In Forge, I probably had I can't even think back to how many I applied to that cycle, but I think I had about 20 interviews and I'm almost positive that every single interview they asked about my Forge project that was listed on my resume and I talked about it and that was like the vast majority of all my interviews. So that definitely helped me get my first co-op, which was at Abiomed, which is a heart pump company, and that was definitely made the largest impact. And I mean, I really love that co-op and I had I got a lot of really great technical experience there. And then actually for my second co-op, which I just accepted a few weeks ago, I was focused more on getting a management co-op just because of the experience that I've gained in Forge and how much I've loved it. And just me knowing myself and knowing what I want to do in the future. So I actually talked about Forge again more than anything else. Specifically, I am working at Whoop as a hardware program management co-op, which kind of directly correlates to my role here at Forge, obviously on a different scale. But in my interviews for that, I used I talked so, so much about my leadership skills that I've developed in Forge how I run my kind of like mini program here and things like that. And that's definitely what set me apart from other candidates, I guess, with that whole process. Yeah, so that's obviously played a huge role in both of my co-ops and definitely has the most to Forge. It takes up the most room on my resume and takes up the most time in my interviews, which is a really, really great thing. I'm sure Sean has some similar experiences. Yeah. So my first project that I worked on in Forge, it was the theme that semester was Health. So my project was a keyboard designed for people with rheumatoid arthritis. So the goal was to reduce the gross motor movement or reduce the fine motor movement and make it a gross motor movement. So that was a really cool project. We, you know, looked a lot into like how to design for different users and ergonomics and things like that. So, you know, I actually kind of struggled to get my first co-op. It took a while I was applying for the fall cycle and it was like after finals, I think I got my first interview and it was for a medtech consulting company. So kind of like in line with that, that health thing. And they, you know, one of the biggest things that they were focusing on during that interview is like the project that I had just worked on this this keyboard here. So I definitely think that, you know, it stuck out on the resume to get the interview to begin with. And then it was a good talking point there. And then just beyond that first co-op, I still talk about the the project I did with Abby. That was it's called Mouthpiece Mate. It's designed to clean brass mouthpieces like for a trumpet and things like that with UV light. So you just put it in a box and it would clean that. So when I was applying this cycle, so I'm currently on co-op right now, I talked about that a lot as well, and that was I with companies with the likes of like Shark Ninja iRobot. I'm currently copying at Amazon Robotics. So it definitely I think helps for sure. They love to see projects so it it will never hurt to have really cool things like that on there. Yeah, my experience is quite different than both of theirs. For context, I am a combined business and psychology major concentrating in marketing, which is very different than bioengineering. Is that which is kind of what has made my Forge experience unique because it is a product development club, but I've never developed a product with Forge. I have always been on sort of like the back end of things, a lot of leading, a lot of outreach. I mean, I'll talk about that a little later. But but Forge has also monopolized a lot of the conversation in my interviews. My first co-op, I was a field marketing co-op for a SaaS company in Silicon Valley called ServiceNow. And I distinctly remember I had three back to back interviews with three different people who would be on my team, and all three of them were like went straight to Forge. They were like, So you're the outreach director on this. What is Forge like? What is this? And so it gave me a lot to talk about and it gave me a lot of leadership experience that I could talk about and anything a lot of the questions that they ask in a lot of business related co-ops is behavioral. So tell me about a time when you were leading this, when you were leading a group and you ran into a problem. How did you solve it? How did you fix it? So this gave me like a plethora of things to talk about and marketing wise. I mean, I sense the club was so young when I started. I kind of just like. Took reins with with Campbell and a lot of other people in the past, but they sort of came and gone. And Campbell and I stayed. And we we just built out like the marketing strategies and how are we going to get Forge's name out there? I mean, just purely that we're on the podcast this year is just that's outreach in itself. Like getting getting our name out there is really difficult because there are so many clubs on campus and I think that's a big thing that we're focusing on hard this year is tabling, going to events, talking to first year, second year, getting newsletters out, like having people subscribe to things and follow us because no one, like when you talk to someone on the street and Northeastern, like no one really knows about Forge yet. Definitely not as much as they know about something like Generate. So we definitely are climbing there. And I mean, as a marketing concentration like and applying to all marketing co-ops, that that's really big. Oh, my gosh. You guys said so many interesting things. Like to start off with it. Your major. Jess I think it I think it's probably propelled you. You know, it it helped you with your leadership experience. So even though it is different, I think it's just as valid. And then with the trumpet mouthpiece as a former trumpet player, that sounds game changing, guys. Yeah. That that projects on both of our portfolios. Yeah. Because if. It was. Sean Suleski.com the way I got the plug. Yeah. Oh my gosh guys brass instruments are are for the strong. Strong. But I'd like to set the scene. Imagine you guys are tabling at Fall Fest and I'm looking to join a club. What is. What if I was looking to join Forge? What would you say is unique about Forge? What helps you guys stand out? Well, I mean, I the the biggest thing I told to anybody who is looking into joining Forge is you can do anything. I mean, like literally you can do anything. I think that's another one of my favorite things about Forge is the creativity that comes out of these projects is incredible. You you start with an idea and you you come out of it with a physical thing in your hand that you're like, Look, I made this. Like, how awesome is that? That you guys just came up with the idea for, like, this mouthpiece cleaner and you came out of the semester with, like, a physical prototype of it that you built. Like how? I mean, it, like, blows me away as non engineer. I'm like, so, like, taken aback by it. Yeah. I actually was tabling out for at Fall Fest so and I probably said the same spiel like. 50 times, if not more. But I definitely am not going to give that spiel. But I definitely emphasize what Sean said earlier of like, this is the way to dip your feet, dip your toes in to get that like initial experience in product development. A lot of people, including myself, come in to college, choose an engineering major and honestly don't know what it means, don't know what we're going to be doing, don't know how to go about doing it. And like I said, for me Forge is what answered all those questions for me? And that's what I want to emphasize to other people. Also, another thing that we kind of haven't touched on as much yet is community. We really emphasize like our community and building connections, making bonds, you know, networking and just like having a space and a community to feel comfortable, accepted in and again, just be around like minded people. So that's something that I talked a lot about at tabling. Of course, I had to show off some of our past projects, some of what my experiences in Forge would be, what have been like, and yeah, just kind of touch on every single aspect of Forge and what impact it has had on me. Can I add on to? I yeah, I love that you talked about community because that's also another thing we're focusing on this year is building out our community more and having more of a focus on like just having support. I mean, college is hard and everyone knows that. So just having people to lean on and people like to talk to about anything, like things that aren't even related to Ford, that's so special. And as someone like who kind of struggled with that in the beginning, like my first year, I really want to get involved. I just didn't know how to. And like all of the clubs I went to, it seemed like everyone was sort of like in their little cliques already and like everyone like everything was set. And so coming into Forge, it was really welcoming and everyone sort of were just like, Yeah, like we're all sort of building it together. Like it's a student led program help us. And I was like, Okay. And so I think it's really special to have a community like this. And I think that all of us are doing a pretty good job at Transport Community. I think, again, the community aspect is so poor because even when I was first here at Northeastern, it's like I really don't know where I want to go, where I belong because there's just so many options, like where do I specifically go? There's just too many options to pick from. But having something like Forge where you could make and design your own product with your fellow peer members, that just creates a sense of community because you created something together that's like truly special. And at the end of the time at Forge, like, we did this, so Let's Go back specifically into the workshops. Can you go more into the process of how the workshops are and what are some of the skills that someone could expect to learn while in the workshops? Yeah, so the workshops are designed for people to learn as if they had no experience with that skill in the past. Because because we're no experience acquired. That is the assumption that you don't really know what what this is. So the general process for how workshops operate, you start with a really, really high level understanding of what is this thing and why should I care about it? Because a lot of the times you just start, you know, diving right into that, how do we do it? And then you get it. You're like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, Why is this even important? When am I going to use this? So I think first nailing down the understanding of like, all right, this is important and this is why it's important is the first goal. And then once we have that settled, then we kind of go into the how and there's an explanation of, all right, so if it's Onshape, for example, they'll show you like the user interface and things like that. This is how you make a sketch. These are different sketch tools. How do you extrude, how do you make assemblies, things like that. So really going into the weeds and like the details there, I make it clear that there's always a, an interactive portion of every workshop because that's the best way to get people to learn and to remember how to use these skills is by doing. When I had done workshops in the past with Forge and Generate the ones that always stuck with me, the best are the ones where I'm working on my own thing. So we definitely try to tailor it specifically to people's projects if we can, because when you're able to make that, that like neural connection to something that you already know that's already built up in your brain there, it's only going to make the connection way better. So the interactive component would be like, All right, here's like a part that you've sketched out. Can you try making it? And then obviously the specialist who's leading the workshop is there to support. They always are kind of like walking around and saying like, oh, do you any questions? Things like that. And it always ends. The workshops end with a recap, another high level, like, All right, what have we done for the past hour? So you don't forget what we just did? I know that you guys have just been, you know, playing around with your new skill for a little bit. But like, again, why do we use this? Why is this important? When do you use this? And then what are some additional resources to to use to follow if you need any more help? And to add on to that, I just want to emphasize like how precisely these workshops are calculated. So mostly Sean, but also like with my support, we worked really hard and spent a lot of time on creating a workshop timeline that really like flows well with the product development process that we follow for the semester. So like things start off with the product development process and we have workshops such as ideation and brainstorming. Obviously that coincides with the beginning of the semester. And then we get into things like CAD. So specifically for us, Onshape, which is the platform we use and then get into more specific things like G20 and machining and other things that Shawn mentioned. Same thing with our software teams. Like kind of it just matches the flow of the product development process. And then along with that, another thing that's really cool is that yes, we tailor a lot of them to what specifically is relevant to our projects. However, we don't limit it to that. So there are a lot of workshops that kind of like expand the scope of Forge, for example, and, and machining, which we don't always get to do and forge and just other things like. That really help expose our members to those aspects of engineering. So, for example, like I went into my first co-op not knowing anything about machining, I learned it all there. I learned it in the machine shop at my company. But I always thought to myself like, it would be really nice if I knew if I had some sort of background, some sort of exposure, regardless of how like detailed it was. So that's another thing we really tried to accomplish is just like regardless of how deep into it we can get, the fact that we're just exposing them to these things and having them like think about it and then hopefully use it in their future experiences is something we really tried to emphasize. And our workshops, I don't know if we mentioned this, but our workshops are open to anybody. All Northeastern students are welcome to come to our workshops. I think it might be a little like nerve wracking walking into a room full of members and everyone's already on the team. But I assure you, if you're listening to this and you want to join the Forge workshop, please come. Everyone's really friendly and the specialists do a great job at walking around and making sure everyone feels comfortable and knows what they're doing and can ask questions freely. And props to Sean for hiring. Amazed like these five amazing specialists. They are really awesome at leading these workshops and I sat in on a couple of them now and I've learned stuff because I don't learn this stuff in my classes. So I sometimes I'm just like, Hey, do I want to learn about like Figma? And I'll sit down in the know I'll do it. And they're all really good at making it fun. I think that's like, that's a big thing that has like made me want to go is they just make it fun. Like I watched like Andrew go up there and be like, well, he's really like gung ho about, like everything. And it's really something I tried to push when I was, like explaining to them like first how to make workshops. Like I, I made the how to make a workshop workshop and I'm like, put so many gifs in there. I'm like, put like the office in there, put SpongeBob in there, like, make it like interesting, make it engaging and that, that I'm really glad to see that it's paying off. Yeah, because no one wants to sit in another hour. Class like this is not a class. It's a workshop where you're with your peers. It's. It's supposed to be fun. It's off hours. So. Yeah, you're doing a great job. Thanks. Know, it sounds like everyone here is doing a great job. I'm not like an engineer. Anyone who's, like, engineering focused. But. Yeah, but, like, you guys sold out. I'm sold. I completely. You can change your major. It's not too late. Oh, my gosh. So. I think it's time to talk about what's next. As you guys said, you guys are a pretty young organization, 2021. And so each year it feels as if there's exponential growth probably. So I would like. What's the goal for next year where you want to see Forge and then let's say five years? Where do want to see for it? Everyone is not there to answer each question. So next year, like next semester or next year, like 2024 or 2025. Next fall semester, I suppose. Okay. Well, I think this whole semester has just been growth. Like it's a growth semester for sure. Growing the club like physically just more people, but also like processes, how we run things, how like everything. Literally everything has changed. Like our branding recently changed everything. So in a year I would really hope to see some more sponsorship and donor action Forge has recently gotten into that. We we haven't really like done any of that in the past. So we're starting on sort of like dip our toes into it and build it out and sort of make it more sustainable. And I really hope I honestly just in five years I hope to see Forge still thriving like nonetheless, like actually doing well, just like existing because you never know, you know, with all the when with young organizations, you never know what's going to happen. Some people or some organizations just drop off and like no one's interested in, they just die. Like, I don't want that to happen to Forge. So we're working really hard to grow it and build a solid foundation for it. I think that that's why focusing on community is so important, because nothing comes before a community. If you can't find new people who want to join your club, then you're not going to have a club. So having that foundation of just like, Hey, this is fun, this is something we're going to make, friends are going to learn a lot, I think is super important to layout now so that in the future, you know, we're going to have an even better community. I would love to establish the more traditions so that we can like have that going and just build up that community, you know, to the max. Yeah, and bouncing off that, unfortunately, all of us will be gone on the management team. So there needs to be a new cohort. And like Sean said, building community is the best way to ensure that qualified and qualified people and people who care and know what the vision and mission of Forge is, stay and stay and grow into these leadership roles and kind of like continue on our legacy and their own way and introducing their own values and traditions and things like that. But yeah, it all stems from community. Yeah, like the I'm the type of person where, you know, you don't have to remember my name. You don't have to remember like what projects I had done. I feel like I would be glad if, you know, if there's a single member out there that, you know, I work with who just remembers, Hey, there was this one guy that, like, really helped me learn, like, I can pin it back to him that like I was able to do some pretty cool things, like he inspired me, like he helped me get a call up. He helped me do some things. And it's like that feeling is going to be what drives me to keep doing this. And that's the type of thing that years down the line, I would love for people to remember me and remember Forge remember everybody else for. Yeah, And I mean, that kind of spirals into what I was about to say, which is like passion, like passion. I even when I was interviewing both of you, like, I was like, we're looking for passionate people. Anyone who's passionate about learning, literally learning anything like that's who we're looking for. So if you're not passionate, don't even apply. Like, I don't like it's there's no there's no point who wants to do something that they're not passionate about. Looks like you're all focused on the right things and big things are coming up for Forge in the future. But can you tell the audience where they can find more information about Forge, such as your socials and any upcoming events that you all have planned? Yeah. Follow us on Instagram, Forge.nu. You can also subscribe to our newsletter. And we have workshops mostly weekly on Thursdays from 6 to 7. Our hardware workshops are in the Sherman Center Makerspace in the basement of Hayden Hall, and our software workshops are in Dodge 140. Okay, Yeah, 140. We are also hosting a workshop for Global Entrepreneurship Week, which I'll pass over to Sean to talk about. So that workshop is going to be a product pitching workshop from our entrepreneurship specialist area. So I'm super excited for that. It's going to be helpful for our teams as they get prepped for pitching their product during our showcase. Also outside of that, the other two, we have two weeks of workshops coming up from the release of this episode, The upcoming two weeks after that, those Thursdays 6 to 7 in the rooms that just just said. And our showcase our end of semester showcase is open to anybody December

7th from 7:30 to 8: 40:30

30. We will be having tabling and food and fun in the Sherman Center lobby. So come on down and check out all the cool products that people have made this year. Yeah. And then we also have a notion page, which has a lot of information, and you can find that through, I think. Our. Instagram. Yeah, the Instagram. And then like I mentioned before this semester, we have a software team dedicated to building our own website, which is has had already really, really great progress. We are all really excited about it and hopefully by the end of the semester or as we're planning to, that will be launched and that will just have basically any and all information that anyone would need about Forge, including applications. And speaking of our applications for the spring semester will actually be dropping shortly within the next few weeks, especially for leads, starting with like the community engagement and operations team and then getting into product lab leads and then specialist and then for members. So within the next few weeks and all throughout November and December, we have applications open for the spring. Well, I just I'd say we would like to say thank you so much for coming on to this episode of the ShermCast. You guys were absolutely amazing guest. Thank you for having us. Thank you. We're glad to have you on here. Okay. And that was Jess, Abby, and Sean Managerial members of Forge. Make sure to check them out. And we hope to see you in the Sherm. And that's today's episode. We had a great time interviewing the executive members of Forgre here at the Sherman Center. Make sure to like and follow this podcast and we all hope to see you next time. So thank you for tuning in. See you then.