Like you could feel that you were in the minority
I don’t know if I can say that there were others that influenced my decision directly, but I will say I had, um, an aunt who was, uh, really smart, like PhD in computer science and was working in the field. So, uh, she, along with, you know, my parents who were both in the STEM field and in more engineering-ish, um, fields, they, they served as examples, right, of, “You can be a woman going into this field. So you should go and, and try that.” It didn’t, um, it wasn’t a direct correlation, but I think just having them in those fields and working in those fields helped to open the door as a possibility.
And then once I, I made the decision to go into engineering. Um, there were a lot of teachers, uh, professors at undergraduate and, um, my graduate advisor, especially and, and my PhD that were, uh, super influential in helping me define my path and where I can succeed and helping me along that journey.
* So I, I’m a big proponent of encouraging women to go into STEM. And I think part of it, um, stems from my experience of, uh, going through the engineering field and, you know, in undergrad, I was one of 10 women in my, in my graduating class of about 100, 115, right, so it was about 10% and you could, you know, you felt the difference, right? I had the great fortune when I went to grad school. Um, in my lab, there happened to be a confluence of, of women that just joined at the same time. So for the first time, there was like five women out of a, a graduating class of like seven. And that was the first time that I felt, “Oh, this is what it could feel like if it was actually, you know, equalized.” Like the conversations in the lab were just different and suddenly other it, it didn’t make engineering one-sided because it wasn’t all just about, uh, just about the work or, or that.
Like it became more overarching and we were able to trade, you know, life’s experiences that were similar and encouraging. Um, and it kind of just made me flip the switches to understand what it could be like if it was fully equalized across the board. Um, and that kind, that spurs it for me. Right? Right? And while I was there, I was like, “Oh, that’s silly. Why is she, why is she doing that? That doesn’t matter.” Um, and it wasn’t until, you know, maybe six months in that I realized why that was. Because no matter how, how much, um, we say, when you’re in the minority, it does somewhat stifle your, um, willingness to put yourself out there and fully be yourself, no matter what type of minority you are in, uh, in that field. And finally being able to be in my field and not feeling like I was the minority kind of opened it up for, for all of us. And we were able to be more free with each other and discuss more and had more communications and more, more open.
Like I had, um, we had an admin in graduate school who was really, uh, invested in like seeding us all into the same cubicle
Um, and being able to bring that feeling across the board, whether it’s for minorities now in women or, uh, race, or, you know, gender preferences, like the more you can equalize the fields so more people are able to be free to be themselves, you open up that potential and you open up communication. And, uh, by doing that, you’re able to listen to everyone. You’re able to hear these ideas. And that’s really when you’re utilizing the, the group at a maximum. And that’s when you’re really unlocking the potential and, uh, able to leverage that, to solve these hard problems, right, to, to solve what needs to be worked on, to have the creativity to think outside the box, to, um, to solve these big problems.
