WiE Learning Community provides supplemental support for first-year engineering students
Marina Xanthopoulos couldn’t stop thinking about the Women in Engineering Learning Community (LC) after she saw Meredith South Hall during a 2024 SWEekend event.
And then, after applying to Purdue University, Xanthopoulos received a handwritten welcome postcard from the Women in Engineering (WiE) Program. The personal touch was the tipping point, pointing Xanthopoulos’ balanced college search irrevocably in Purdue’s favor.
The WiE LC only sweetened the deal: Living with a group of first-year engineering (FYE) students who shared classes, homework and college experience made going to college feel less daunting.
Currently situated across multiple floors of Meredith South in West Lafayette, Indiana, the WiE LC is open to FYE students. Students who live in the LC are concurrently in ENGR 19400 (Women in Engineering Seminar). With a community of supportive and bubbly resident assistants (who have matching pajamas), FYE students live in a space where everyone else is on the same engineering journey.
Applications to live in the WiE LC for the 2026-27 academic year are due for priority review on April 15, 2026, after a student has accepted admission to Purdue. One of the largest Learning Communities at Purdue, the WiE LC has about 300 students.
Monthly LC events focus on exploring the 17 engineering disciplines offered in West Lafayette, complete with sophomores, juniors and seniors in various majors coming by to chat with curious FYE students. Signature events include off-campus visits to learn about the impact of engineering. In spring 2025, the LC spent the day on a Chicago walking tour called, “Marvels & Masterpieces: An Engineer’s Guide to Chicago Architecture.” In the fall, the group ventured to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to tour the racetrack and learn from motorsports engineers.
“All of the events WiE hosts and opportunities they offered to us made a large school feel smaller,” said Xanthopoulos, whose favorite events included a LEGO build and a matcha night. “You get a tight-knit group of students in engineering who are always willing to study with you, but also to have a lot of fun. I’m getting the best of both worlds, academically and socially.”
Having a built-in friend circle on and off campus — Xanthopoulos attended one of the LC’s trips to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway — and in ENGR 194 helped her become open to new experiences without worrying about looking silly while learning. She joined an EPICS project and was selected as project manager by the team. The responsibility was nerve-wracking.
But Xanthopoulos had knowledgeable resources: friendly and insightful mentors, resident assistants (RAs), peers and professors. Suddenly she wasn’t afraid to share ideas and confidently lead the team through building an electronic arm for a wheelchair.
The LC, Xanthopoulos said, was a blueprint to becoming a bold and confident leader as an FYE student. Community guidance and encouragement also led Xanthopoulos to take ENGR 29600 (Gender in the World Study Abroad) in spring 2026, ready to take on Europe with friends and classmates on the spring break trip.
“I think being in an LC has taught me that I didn’t have to be afraid to join communities or share my ideas, and I really saw the change last semester,” Xanthopoulos said. “I was so shy when I started, and now I feel so much more confident in learning and leading.”
Second-year RA Ilona Edstrom was also a quiet student when she started at Purdue in 2023. Her first college friend was made in the WiE LC hallway while watching a supplemental calculus lecture. They’ve been friends since.
“All of my early friendships were through the LC, which is part of why I came back as an RA,” said Edstrom, a junior in aeronautical and astronautical engineering (AAE) from Chicago. “I love this community and getting to be a part of the first impression (FYE) students have of WiE. It was so special to me my first year to be here, and I love watching them grow in that same space, too.”
Edstrom didn’t know anything about the WiE LC when she committed to Purdue in spring 2023. She just knew that a full ride scholarship to study sculpture at a different university didn’t come with the built-in community of amazing engineers that WiE did.
And thankfully, all of the principles Edstrom loved about sculpture applied to AAE just the same.
“You have to have a good 3D awareness when you're in engineering, which I definitely had from my sculpting experiences,” Edstrom said. “It's been extremely helpful to have that awareness in design. And having that art experience means that I can create both the data and the pretty slides for presentations and reviews.”
In the LC, that same awareness helped Edstrom craft memorable and personalized door decorations for each student. Her designs have varied from classic children’s books to characters from “The Muppets” and often can be repurposed as bookmarks.
Another integral part of being an RA is hosting great social events to engage residents. Edstrom wanted to start off the spring semester with a strong, fun and pun-tastic event.
“It was so perfect,” she said, energy exuding from a grin. “I missed them so much (over winter break) and college students love food. I had bought two tubs of tiramisu, so obviously it had to be called Tira-Missed-You-So-Much.”
About half of Edstrom’s 49 residents stopped in. Showing up is the most important thing an FYE student can do in a residence hall, according to the RA.
“Knowing everyone in the hall means you’ll always have a friend to do something with,” Edstrom said. “I watch my residents go to the gym together, do homework together, watch lectures together and go bowling together. It also means that any time you don’t know something on your homework, there’s a really good chance one of your friends down the hall can help you.”
