The Development of Women and Young Professionals in STEM Careers

Tips and Tricks

Michele Kruger, Hannelie Nel

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781000702675
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Science General
• Index: Biological Sciences

This book is fluent and systematic. The authors work through the fears and ambitions of young people new to STEM careers in the professional environment. Often, there is a lack of mentors, which leaves a young STEM practitioner exposed and doubting their own abilities.

This book encourages young professionals and women in STEM careers to know that they are not alone and provides insight into their ability to deal with the stress of developing into a successful professional.

Features

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• Presents a method or vehicle to fast track young professionals and women in STEM

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• Includes key issues that they should be aware of as they grow and develop in their education and field

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• Describes how STEM career women are owners of their own path and provides an understanding of engineering and the business of consulting

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• Conveys how young professionals and women in STEM can be aware of their own productivity and enjoy what they do and the career path they have selected

This book is ideal for those new to the engineering, science, and consulting fields, including students in science and engineering education, administrators, libraries, those involved in leadership, organization behavior, human resources, STEM, and other areas as well.

Passion for
the Job 1

1.1 Forty Years (or More)

One of the most important things to realize is that you only have one life on earth. One. Let me say it again… ONE. This is it; there is no practice run, no rehearsal, just this. No matter what religion you practice, you still just have one life on this earth. Ok, I stand corrected … in this specific form, if you believe in reincarnation.

What does that mean? It means that you need to rid yourself of the notion that having that dream job/life is for “others”: the famous, perfect “other people” beautifully portrayed in advertising enjoying amazing ski trips and sun-kissed beach holidays, with beautifully perfect children—going from success to success. I just need to point out here that those people are models/actors (who probably don’t even have children), interacting with children they just met that day. IT’S NOT REAL!

Now, with that tirade done, let’s get back to you. There will ever only be one awesome you. Only you will ever understand yourself best and what is best for you. Not your parents, not your partner, not your boss or friends. So now that we have established that you only have one life and only you know your strengths and weaknesses, what you like or dislike, it is now up to you to imagine your Dream Job.

The Dream Job doesn’t have to remain a dream. It can be real if you systematically move yourself in that direction. That said, your idea of a Dream Job will change as you go throughout life. As it should! We all change and develop as the years pass.

As you start your career, often at only 18 years old, you are usually in a situation where you have no idea what you want, but you have to make a choice, NOW! You then spend an average of three to four years on study and training, which dictate the rest of your life. I just want to point out something profound—3 years are dictating the following 40 years or more … and your happiness. In an era where we are now told the first person who will become 200 years old has already been born, this is actually quite ridiculous.

After studying, we are traditionally conditioned to think that the next step is to find a job, slog through, hope for promotions and raises, have a family and through further slogging, create opportunities for your children. Through even further slogging, you assist in raising grandchildren, and if you are really lucky you get to enjoy that thing you have actually been waiting for your whole life—retirement. Once again, glamorized by the media, retirement is shown as two beautifully graying, healthy, fit people taking long walks on the beach and lifting grandchildren in the air. The truth is often very different as retirees are struggling to pay escalating medical bills with savings far less than that promised by another media campaign put together by pension companies.

Instead of feeling alarmed by this, I want you to start feeling excited! “But Michele!” I hear you say. “You just freaked me out and depressed me! I will get extremely old and I won’t have enough money to do so!” What I am saying is: if you get your head right, you won’t want to retire and you will have no problem financing your old age. Not only that, but you will love every minute!

Instead of slogging through the next 40 years or more, I want you to imagine yourself as if you were a child running into a new playroom. There are so many toys; you can’t wait to play with them all! You choose your favorite first and then move on to the next, then the next. There aren’t enough hours in the day to get to all the toys!

As in life, your playing is disrupted—you need to eat, have a bath, you need to do homework, you need to play in a group game. There will be bumps, but overall it is a wonderfully enjoyable experience. In life, I equate the bumpy road to family celebrations and tragedies, family fights, having children, and changes in economic circumstances. But overall, life should be very enjoyable, not a slog. A career is not a 40-yearlong slog at one company, being grateful for a salary and a life unfulfilled. Your life and career are an endless and unlimited buffet of experiences, to be sampled and enjoyed (or spat out sometimes). And the only person who can create this for you is you. Nobody owes you anything. Nobody cares more about your life and career than you. Shouldn’t you then be in the driver’s seat deciding the road and destination? Cue roadtrippin’ music here…

1.2 “Know Thyself”

One of the most jarring moments of my life was a scene that played out in the movie The Matrix where the Oracle points out to Neo the meaning of “Temet nosce”—“Know thyself.”

The phrase was previously touched on by the philosopher Socrates who taught that:

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”

Whoah! Mind blown.

Do you really know yourself? Have you examined your life? The good, bad, and ugly? Are you able to be really honest with yourself in all aspects of your life?

When I heard these words for the first time, I was relatively young and it was hard to admit to myself that I obviously had weaknesses, as I was fighting to make something of myself every day. I was fulfilling my destiny, wasn’t I?

Looking back, I was definitely doing the right thing for me at that time. I just never saw myself at that time moving to where I am now in life. I was in such a bubble, indoctrinated with the needs of everyone around me. As you move through life, you will constantly need to examine yourself and your life and adjust your buffet sample plate accordingly. Are you still on your road, or are you taking a detour on someone else’s road (in other words, doing what they need you to do)?

I challenge you to go sit somewhere quiet, preferably with an amazing view, and be honest with yourself. Who are you? The real you? Look at your life from all angles. Is it going where you want it to go? Not where your parents, partner, boss, or where you think society wants you to go? Are you being the real you?

Ok, now that you have that down, I don’t want you to change yourself. I want you to be yourself. I want you to love that person who is there deep down, warts and all. Not the front/pretense you put up as boss, worker, parent, child, friend, or community member—the real you. The bigger the gap between the real you and the person you let others think you are, the more energy you are spending on just existing. No wonder you feel tired all the time!

Just be yourself! Spending a lifetime pretending to be something or someone else is pointless and will eventually make you bitter when you are not rewarded for this unconscious effort. Silly you!

The more time you spend being yourself, the more you will attract like-minded people and the more time you will be spending with people you really enjoy! Do you now see how you have actually been sabotaging your happiness by pretending to be someone else and surrounding yourself with people who don’t fit with you? Or even worse, irritate or bully you?

Exactly. Know thyself. Boom!

1.3 Are You a Penguin?

“What?” I hear you say. “Why would I want to be a penguin?” Well, it’s not so much being a penguin as being judged as a bird when you are a penguin.

Imagine this: You have all the tools a bird has—you have wings, you lay eggs, you have a beak—but alas you can’t fly, you look ridiculous walking on solid ground, and chasing after food is impossible. You feel absolutely useless, and every day you are being judged at how bad a bird you are.

Now, put your penguin butt in water, everything changes! You fly through the water and you are elegance personified! You are at home in the water and finding food is ridiculously easy as you shoot like a speeding bullet through the water. Not so useless now, are you?

A career in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) can be the same. There are historic expectations placed on you, that the perfect STEM person should be so and so and so. You may be placed in a box with certain expectations, and even though you are killing yourself to make others happy, you just don’t fit and sometimes you just feel useless (and often afraid).

Well, no more my beautiful penguins! You can bring your passion to your STEM career and fly through the water. Diversity is the key to success! Having only one personality type, just a bunch of mini-mes of the boss is a sure road to business failure (how can there be new ideas if everyone is the same!). Having diversity and multiple personality types living out their passion means that you will all bring synergy to your environment and to the company. It takes great leadership to recognize when someone is feeling like a penguin on land and how to get them into the water, but more on that later. However, it’s up to you to go to management to tell them about your penguin problem and it’s you that has to convince them of your passion and talents and how getting your butt in water will take the company further (and be more profitable/productive).

An example of this is when you are required to do highly technical, repetitive work (such as laboratory testing). You are bored out of your mind and you need to have contact with other people. Is there then perhaps an opportunity for you to interact with clients? Will your warm and charming personality not be better suited to that rather than that of the highly introverted manager who prefers not to deal with people? The poor manager loved his job in the lab and now a promotion means he is in client liaison hell.

The opposite can also apply. The worst thing you can do to a highly productive and profitable engineer/scientist that prefers detail design or research and development is forcing the person to do cold-call business development. These people hate making calls, so this is their personal hell!

So speak up, penguin! You have so much more to give! And you don’t have to wallow in hell, just convince your manager to shove you in the water.

1.4 Personality Testing

My biggest tip in the world to you is to do personality testing. Some are free on the Internet, and some are hugely expensive. It doesn’t matter; do as many as you can! You, my dear penguin, will surprise yourself! And find yourself.

1.5 Finding Your Passion in Your Current Situation

Now that your career can be viewed as a wonderful buffet, I challenge you to consider how your current job can be viewed. Is it a tasty morsel, more than the sum of its parts in an exciting taste combination shown so delightfully in the Disney animation Ratatouille? Or is it a dry piece of steak—fulfilling its duty to nourish but could do with something extra, like spice or sauce? Or worse—boiled, bitter Brussels sprouts?

Life is what you are making of it. You may be stuck with a steak right now, not of your making (you would have made it nice and juicy). How can you use your resources to add a nice sauce or spice it up? Why not add a lemon butter sauce to the Brussels sprouts?

Let me use an example. You are currently working for a big corporation. Your job is ok, you are able to create security to your extended family, and in general, you have nothing to complain about. Every now and again, you feel pressurized by deadlines or having to find projects to keep the company going. You have staff to manage and there will always be HR issues to deal with. Not a Michelin star dish, but like meatloaf, it’s ok on a weeknight.

If you are not able to make drastic changes, what will improve this situation? Finding your passion. If you can find purpose in your work, it won’t just be a slog; it will be a reason to live. As an engineer myself, deliv...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Authors
• 1 Passion for the Job
• 2 Emotional Intelligence
• 3 Thinking Strategically about Your Career
• 4 Mentorship
• 5 Leadership
• 6 Authority, Responsibility, and Ownership
• 7 Communication
• 8 Marketing and Selling
• 9 Intrapreneurship
• 10 Entrepreneurship
• 11 Innovation
• 12 Financial Intelligence
• 13 Risk and Quality Management
• 14 Sustainability
• 15 Attracting, Developing, and Retaining Women Engineers and Scientists