Advice
Make room for the A in STE-A-M - you main follow a science or engineering school path or career path but keep mixing in the A(rts) or people focused activities. These skills are invaluable to a successful and happy career.
Be a risk taker - Try things out - Wendi's a risk taker, she tries new things that interest her. She mentioned she'd recently worked recently for a startup consulting firm recently that went out of business - when it didn't work out she looked at it as a learning experience and she went on to new things.
Stay in math and science in high school as it keeps your options open - it makes life easier if you have done this in school as it gives you more options in college.
Do what you do best - Wendi learned there are things she loves to do and is really good at, and other things she can pass on. You'll learn what those things are for you.
School
Wendi was good at science and math in school and her councilor suggested she try engineering in college. At first she thought she was going to be a mechanical engineer, but by the end of the first year she'd switched to electrical engineering. Most of the first year classes at college for engineering are more or less the same so its easy to switch between them.
She worked through her engineering subjects at college but would always take other subjects -in fact a couple of the classes she found most interesting were not in engineering.
She offers the advice of staying in math and science in high school as it keeps your options open as you learn more about what you might like to do - however she says you can always catch up, its just that it gets harder later on.
STE-A-M
She thinks that the letter A should be added to STEM as engineering is as much an ART as a science. It's the art of bringing the people together, of being creative in the solutions, and of figuring out what people want.
Early Career
She started her engineering work when cellular technology was starting up. When she worked with Motorola she got to work on several projects. One project in particular was in in Japan - this was a project where she found using her people skills super important, and is an example of the A in STEAM. To be successful on the project required her to understand how the cultures of the team from the US worked with the team from Japan.
Many of her projects required her to be out of the office. One project she worked on was to make sure the quality of a cellular network was good. The problem that was happening was people where losing their cell phone calls in certain locations on certain phones - and they needed to figure out whether it was a networking problem (information being sent to and from a cell tower) or the device (the phone in the persons hand). She spent several week in a van with other engineers driving around the area and running signal tests.
She learned in that project how to deal with people who had different needs. The manager from the networking team wanted the network to be rock solid, so wanted to be patient to make sure they fixed the problem for the long-term. The manager from the device-phone team wanted a quick solution as he wanted to quickly stop customers complaining about the problem and stop them from leaving the phone plan.
Later Career
Wendi switched to a civil engineering company - this company designed and built huge systems that required large teams, often working around the world, and the projects might take years to complete.
One of the projects she worked on was to manage traffic on freeways. She worked on the project that added the mini-traffic lights that you see when you're on a ramp about to enter the freeway. These traffic lights help to keep traffic flowing by controlling the frequency the cars get on the freeway when the traffic is busy. It was an exciting project to work on as they were using early artificial intelligence to get the systems to work.
She liked to bring the human element to many of her projects by asking 'What is the user experience going to be like when we do this?'
She worked on technology and security projects for supply chains. One example was understanding the supply chain of importing toilets from Turkey! She had to understand the complete process from manufacturing, packaging, transportation system (boats, ports, trains) to insure that a specific security level was achieved and how to use technology to achieve this. Another example was the supply chain for Starbucks, and the importation of coffee from Guatemala.
Make room for the A in STE-A-M - you main follow a science or engineering school path or career path but keep mixing in the A(rts) or people focused activities. These skills are invaluable to a successful and happy career.
Be a risk taker - Try things out - Wendi's a risk taker, she tries new things that interest her. She mentioned she'd recently worked recently for a startup consulting firm recently that went out of business - when it didn't work out she looked at it as a learning experience and she went on to new things.
Stay in math and science in high school as it keeps your options open - it makes life easier if you have done this in school as it gives you more options in college.
Do what you do best - Wendi learned there are things she loves to do and is really good at, and other things she can pass on. You'll learn what those things are for you.
School
Wendi was good at science and math in school and her councilor suggested she try engineering in college. At first she thought she was going to be a mechanical engineer, but by the end of the first year she'd switched to electrical engineering. Most of the first year classes at college for engineering are more or less the same so its easy to switch between them.
She worked through her engineering subjects at college but would always take other subjects -in fact a couple of the classes she found most interesting were not in engineering.
She offers the advice of staying in math and science in high school as it keeps your options open as you learn more about what you might like to do - however she says you can always catch up, its just that it gets harder later on.
STE-A-M
She thinks that the letter A should be added to STEM as engineering is as much an ART as a science. It's the art of bringing the people together, of being creative in the solutions, and of figuring out what people want.
Early Career
She started her engineering work when cellular technology was starting up. When she worked with Motorola she got to work on several projects. One project in particular was in in Japan - this was a project where she found using her people skills super important, and is an example of the A in STEAM. To be successful on the project required her to understand how the cultures of the team from the US worked with the team from Japan.
Many of her projects required her to be out of the office. One project she worked on was to make sure the quality of a cellular network was good. The problem that was happening was people where losing their cell phone calls in certain locations on certain phones - and they needed to figure out whether it was a networking problem (information being sent to and from a cell tower) or the device (the phone in the persons hand). She spent several week in a van with other engineers driving around the area and running signal tests.
She learned in that project how to deal with people who had different needs. The manager from the networking team wanted the network to be rock solid, so wanted to be patient to make sure they fixed the problem for the long-term. The manager from the device-phone team wanted a quick solution as he wanted to quickly stop customers complaining about the problem and stop them from leaving the phone plan.
Later Career
Wendi switched to a civil engineering company - this company designed and built huge systems that required large teams, often working around the world, and the projects might take years to complete.
One of the projects she worked on was to manage traffic on freeways. She worked on the project that added the mini-traffic lights that you see when you're on a ramp about to enter the freeway. These traffic lights help to keep traffic flowing by controlling the frequency the cars get on the freeway when the traffic is busy. It was an exciting project to work on as they were using early artificial intelligence to get the systems to work.
She liked to bring the human element to many of her projects by asking 'What is the user experience going to be like when we do this?'
She worked on technology and security projects for supply chains. One example was understanding the supply chain of importing toilets from Turkey! She had to understand the complete process from manufacturing, packaging, transportation system (boats, ports, trains) to insure that a specific security level was achieved and how to use technology to achieve this. Another example was the supply chain for Starbucks, and the importation of coffee from Guatemala.