Episode 4: Success in Electrical Engineering with Janessa W.

Welcome to All Things STEM With Ashley!

In this video, we dive into the essential tips for success in the STEM field, specifically Electrical Engineering. Whether you're just starting your journey or looking to level up in your career, these strategies will help you navigate the challenges and excel in this competitive industry. As a woman in STEM, breaking barriers and achieving your goals is entirely possible—especially with the right mindset and approach! We cover Janessa's STEM journey, her introduction to STEM, research, earning a Master's degree in Electrical Engineering, sharing insights on how advanced education can open doors to new opportunities and accelerate your professional growth.

Learn how networking in STEM can be a game changer, connecting you with mentors, peers, and industry leaders to expand your influence and knowledge. Plus, get actionable tips on how to stay confident, overcome obstacles, and thrive in a male-dominated field. With advice tailored specifically for women pursuing careers in engineering and other technical fields, this video provides practical steps to help you succeed and make an impact in Electrical Engineering and beyond. Don’t miss these powerful strategies for advancing your career in STEM!

#WomenInSTEM #ElectricalEngineering #STEMCareers #NetworkingInSTEM #EngineeringSuccess #MastersInEngineering #WomenInEngineering

 Meet our guest, Janessa Wilkins! Janessa Wilkins was born in Queens, New York. Her family moved upstate where she attended high school in Troy, New York. She attended Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland as an electrical engineering major her senior year. During her matriculation, she interned at The University of Maryland and Exelon Corporation before landing her first engineering career at Sandia National Laboratories, a national research laboratory in Albuquerque, New Mexico, upon graduating in May 2014. She was hired as a component engineer through their Masters Fellowship Program allowing her to attend graduate school tuition free. In fall of 2014, she attended Texas A&M University under their graduate electrical engineering program with a focus in power systems. In December of 2015 she earned her Masters of Engineering from TAMU and began her full time engineering career at Sandia National Laboratories in the components engineering group. She remained in that group until 2018, when she moved to a thermal battery test engineering group. In 2019, she applied to an missile defense company in Texas and was hired as a component engineer where she currently works.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:11):
Hello everyone, and welcome to All Things Sam with Ashley.
I am your host, Ashley, and today we have Jennessa
Wilkins as our guest. Jennesson was born in Queens, New York,
and later moved upstate to Troy, New York, where she
attended high school. She pursued electrical engineering at Morgan State
University in Baltimore, Maryland, and interned at the University of
Maryland in Excellent Corporation. After graduating in May twenty fourteen,

(00:36):
she began her engineering career at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque,
New Mexico, as a component engineer through her Master's s
Fellowship program, which allowed her to attend graduate school tuition free.
In twenty fourteen, she started her graduate studies at Texas
A and M University, focusing on power systems, and earned
her master's in engineering in December twenty fifteen. She continued

(00:57):
her studies at Sandia National Laboratories, working in the component's
engineering group until twenty eighteen, when she transitioned to a
Thermo battery test engineering group. In twenty nineteen, she moved
to Texas to work as a component engineer for a
missile defense company, where she currently works now, So today
we will welcome to that still Welkins, Oh, how are

(01:18):
you good? How about yourself? Good? Thank you for joining us,
Thank you for having me. I'm very excited to hear
about your STEM journey, yes, and why you pursued electrical engineering,
how what component's engineering is and things like that. Okay,
so thank you for having me. Thank you for giving
me that intro as well. So, as you know, currently

(01:38):
right now, I'm in a MISSILEID defense company as component engineer.
But my background academically is electrical engineering. So starting off
with like how I kind of got into it? So
in high school, you know, I was kind of undecided
what I wanted to do. I've always been pretty academic,
and I knew while I was going to college, I
just didn't know what I wanted to do. Right. So

(01:59):
between my sophomore year my junior year, I went to
a program at a local university, c uh Rensular Polytechnic Institute,
which is a very popular engineering school in upstate New York. Okay.
This program was designated to kind of help young women,
especially minority women, kind of get acclimated and familiar with

(02:20):
engineering and other still related fields. Oh cool, so I
attended that and it was a really good program, giving
me a lot of insight not engineering, just what it is,
how diverse, you know, the different disciplines within engineering were
and thinking like that. So after completing that program, which
was a summer program, I kind of did some research
on you know, different types of engineering, seeing what would

(02:44):
fit me the best. You know, at the time, I
was really into like physics, mathematics, things like that. So yeah,
when I did the research, I knew I wanted to
go to a historically black college or university, so I
intentionally kind of looked at universities that offer programs, and
once I decided I wanted to do electrical engineering, right,

(03:06):
I kind of focused in on that and applied to
different colleges and universities that offered that career path. So
that was kind of my introduction and you know, my
first glance into what engineering was. And you know, of course,
like how to go about having a successful career in

(03:26):
engineering through college. So I love that. It's super cool.
You don't hear much about components engineering, Yeah, it's not
a major, so it's like you don't really hear about
until you get to the level like where you're out
of school. So you know, like I said, I was
electrical engineering. Yeah, and so my first job, well, my

(03:47):
focus when I was in school was kind of on
like computer engineering. Okay. My first job straight out of
school was at a research laboratory and the group that
hired me was a component reliability group. Okay, so I
was the first in that check to make sure that
all the electrical components and those weapon systems were reliable
essentially able to through testing. Right. That being said, that

(04:09):
was my first professional introduction into my career. And so
you know, I liked what I did. I liked you know,
the work I did and the people I worked with.
So I decided I liked to kind of stay in
that realm, but I did want to move out to
New Mexico. So when I applied to the company that
I'm currently working for, right, I knew that I wanted

(04:30):
to stay within this like reliability components kind of engineering,
uh group, And so I found a position that still
offered that very similarly to the last position I left,
and so I've been sticking with that ever since then.
The electrical engineering is really helpful for this role because
it gives me kind of that background on just electrical

(04:52):
components period, so like how they function, you know, what
they are is just identify and you know, finding alternates
that are sufficing the functions of the part. Having that
electrical background has helped me with that within this component
engineering group. So you answered all of my questions almost.
I was gonna say, elect what is the can you

(05:14):
give us the overview of electric electrical engineering? Gonna a
overview of what components is and how they kind of different,
but like you said, how they work hand in hand?
Got you? Okay? So electrical engineering is the study of
the way electricity works, right, and so with that being said,
is taking that knowledge of that information and applying it
to elect our engineering applications. So pretty much engineering as

(05:37):
a whole is just solving problems. Yeah, and then you
have these different disciplines. So electrical is solving these problems electrically, okay.
And so with that when you're college, when you're in
college and you're getting that education, they're teaching you identifying
electrical problems, learning how to characterize, uh, you know, different

(06:01):
situations when it comes to electricity, So calculating how much
voltage you need, current, things of that nature. It's kind
of like the basis of electrical engineering, right, learning how
other engineering disciplines kind of tie into that. So with
component engineering, the parts that I'm responsible for are electrical parts.

(06:25):
So for me, if I'm going and doing an analysis
like I do in my current role, where I do
these analysis for these parts lists, and I noticed that
there's this resistor that's you know, let's say absolutely at
the moment, I could go in with my electrical engineering
knowledge and say, okay, well this is a two hundred,
you know, thousand resistor, so it provides as much resistance.

(06:50):
What can we find out there in the market that's
alway or able to do the similar application that this
part would have done, that's available, you know, that's not obsolete.
So having that knowledge that backgrounds really helpful to be
able to make decisions and form decisions to kind of
help us help the group and the company, you know,
navigate around those kind of like obsolescence and procurement problems.

(07:14):
I love it. Yeah, Can you tell us about any
role models or mentors that you had that helped shape
your STEM journey. So I would say probably one of
the biggest uh influences for me to pursue my engineering
curriculum was my best friend as he's live back home. MM,
because like I said, at the you know, beginning of

(07:35):
high school, kind of middle of high school, I was
kind of un indecisive of what I really wanted to do,
and I was like, oh, maybe I wanna be a lawyer,
you know. And so she kind of was the one
that kind of was able to really see how talented
I was in these them related like subjects, you know, math,
our faces classes, our science classes, things like that, and

(07:55):
she was like, you know, I think you would do
well doing engineering. Her brother did engineering, right, so she
was a little bit more insightful on to what engineering
was and kind of how to navigate that. So she
was the one that told me, like, you should really
look into like doing engineering. And it was such a
timely time because it was around the time that that
program at recent Polytechnic Institute was opening and having applications

(08:20):
for ooh young women to go. So it was like,
you know, that really helped God and push me in
that direction. Yeah. And then so in addition to her
also like just my high school guidance counselor, Yeah, she
was very big on getting students of color into historically
black colleges and universities, with us being in upstate New

(08:41):
York where you were pretty far from like where most
HBCUs are located in the country, so you didn't get
a lot of exposure to things like that. When we
had college fairs and stuff, it was usually local you know,
New York schools, Northeast school stuff like that. You really
ever saw HBCU, So it wasn't a lot of information
regarding that, right, And so she really was helping me

(09:03):
when I was picking through colleges to see who had
this like engineering program that would be you know, fit
my needs and what I wanted to do. Right, she
was the one that I was helping me find schools
and you know, pushing me to apply to these schools
that did offer the engineering programs that I was looking
to do. So those probably were my two biggest STEM

(09:24):
related influences. So, yeah, were there any challenges she faced
growing up that made pursuing a STEM journey difficult? I
believe the challenges that I really had were not necessarily
aligned to STEM themselves, but just kind of growing up.
You know, I guess like lower middle class to middle
middle class where it's like money you know, college tuition

(09:47):
is always like, yes, where's this money gonna come from?
You know, got to apply to our scholarships that are
available out there. And so for me, it was more
so like if we would be able to sustain me
going into this program and actually seeing it through for
all four years, and so that in and of itself
was probably the challenge. Now, academically, it was a pretty

(10:09):
challenging program. It's engineering, so it is a lot of math,
a lot of science, and even with me who was
a little more math and science favorite, I definitely feel
like there was times where it was just like a
lot it was a lot more in college. It's just
a big transition from high school. And so it's like
learning time management, learning how to manage my procrastination, which

(10:31):
was always a part of me. Things of that nature
kind of were really like the challenges based my face
ecuse me while matriculating through my college journey and engineering
so that you know, I was able to come out
and still be successful. So yeah, it is a lot
of it was a learning curve and you know, trying

(10:52):
to decide if I'm a stay up on a night
study or get sixty eight hours to sleep ye, and
that's a real decision you got in college, so it's like,
you know, learning that for the first time and then
you're on your own. I was in Maryland, my family
was in New York, So it's like, you know, just
going through everything that you go through when you're in college,
whether that's you know, family related stuff that's in the family,

(11:14):
things that you're not present for anymore, and navigating that's
just like emotionally while still being able to get the
good grades, keep your scholarships, yeah, keep you know, your
eyes and everythings like that is probably some of the
challenges that you know, most college kids are gonna run into,
especially in like the STEM field that's so demanding and

(11:36):
yeah you know so yeah, well thank you, no problem.
It's one project or accomplishment that you are most proud
of during your STEINM career journey. I actually have too,
But what is you know, more actually to my career
and the other one that's kind of just a general
professional accomplishment. Yeah. So in my current company that I'm

(11:56):
at right now, there was this really big project that
kind of was sitting collecting us for a long time
because it was such a huge project that took so
much time that a lot of people weren't really willing
to do it, or people would get in this row
and do it for two or three years. And this
was a project that would have taken a couple of
years to actually implement and successfully put out, so people

(12:20):
weren't sticking around long enough to even see it through.
So on a high level, I could talk to it,
and it's basically like there was these projects, and it
was hundreds of thousands of parts less right that needed
to have some type of analysis to make sure that
we had these parts and they're not obsolutely like they
were still procurable and things of that nature, right, but

(12:42):
it t it took so long to actually get all
these parts less together and so much time dedicated to
sorting through this data. Yeah, and so basically when it
was presented to me, I kind of became one track minded,
but I, you know, was the first person I actually
go in and complete that project, see it through, and

(13:04):
then finally be able to provide answers to all these
test engineers that I work with in my group to
figure out, you know, what's going on with these parts
and then start navigating and fixing some of these issues
that have been sitting there for years. Yeah, so that's excellent. Yeah,
I was really proud about that. And then the second

(13:26):
thing that I am proud of at my former company,
the first company that I got when I graduated undergrad,
I was the first direct hired from Morgan State University.
Oh wow. And so at the time, you know, they
did have a HBCU initiative, but my school was a
smaller school and not very well known, right, and so

(13:46):
it and then HBCUs already not very well known on
top of that, and when you overshadow with these bigger
universities and research schools. Yeah, and so, uh, with that
being said, since I came out and I was the
first person that they actually recruited directly from the school,
I kind of put our name on the list so
that now they go there and recruit every year. Yeah.

(14:07):
So it was you know nice being kind of the trailblazer,
the person that kind of initiated that relationship between the
company and the university. So I'm really happy to have
bridge that gap that was previously there prior to my
you know arrival to the company. So that is huge. Yeah,
that's historical, like, so yeah, I really happy. Yeah, they

(14:27):
have such a good relationship and now they recruit there
multiple times a year. Yeah, I think so you're passing
you happy to say that pipeline exactly. So thank you,
thank you, that's cool. Thank you. Now I want to
transition to how you see new emerging technologies like AI
affecting the electrical engineering space. I know that's your background

(14:50):
and your components now, but how do you feel like
artificial intelligence would do that? We see it everywhere. We
see model based systems AI everywhere we look now in
the consistent it's everywhere. So what do you feel like
it's gonna affect I believe that AI. I mean, I
feel like the purpose of AI is kind of to
automate certain things that it previously were done by people.

(15:12):
But I always say, like anytime there's any type of
new technology that's being built, there's engineers behind it. So
electrical engineering is a very broad kind of engineering, so
you know, there's different disciplines within it. And so for
you know, someone in my position who deals mostly with
parts is you know, s AI does c require you know,

(15:36):
circuit boards things like that that make them run right.
So to me, I feel like one you'll see a
shift in like electrical engineering, and like where things were
a little bit more analogue, a little bit more mechanical
n olden days are now kind of shifting to this
more digital electrical kind of a you know feel, And

(15:57):
so I think a lot of the disciplines behind electrical
engineering are kind of gonna shift more to this more
software and more computer based type of discipline, if that
makes sense. So yeah, I think ai. I like it
because I think it does create more opportunities for electrical engineering.

(16:19):
I know a lot of other fields and disciplines are
a little more concerned, you know, take more jobs, and
you know, in some situations that may be true. But
for engineering, one thing I really like about engineering is
you you know, you always need an engineer. Any type
of new technology, you'll always need engineering behind it to

(16:40):
help the function to make it go. You know, there
was a phrase my professor used to say, and I
can't remember the exact phrase, but basically it said, you know,
computers are good at computing and that's it. So they're
not good at deciphering. So you could program a machine
to pick up products a and put it in the
bi simply put on shelves to sell to people, right,

(17:02):
But it's just gonna do that. Yeah, if product a
one of them is defective, it's still gonna pick it
up and put it in the box and put it
on the shelf. They sent it to somebody where a
person is gonna say, oh, this is defective, let me
pull it out. You know, computers don't know to do that.
They just do what you tell them to do. And
that is why I always feel like engineering is always
gonna be safe. You always need a human factor behind

(17:24):
everything we do. Okay, So I think that the new
technology to me is exciting. I'm excited to see what
kind of you know, opportunities is gonna open up, and
you know, see what else is gonna bring you forward
as far as the engineering goes. So thank you, no word,
that was excellent. Thank you. Next, I want to talk

(17:44):
about how does electrical engineering interact with other disciplines such
as computer science, mechanical engineering, or civil engineering. Gotcha, Okay,
So electrical engineering is very broad, but I think it does.
I think all engineerings kind of touch each other and
kind of have a little bit of overlap with each other.
So with electrical engineering, electrical engineering is very closely related

(18:06):
to computer engineering as well to the point where a
lot of electrical engineers, I know, how you know, a
minor or you know, are focused in their computer engineering
under their electrical engineering curriculum, right, So it does touch
on that a lot of electrical engineers like go towards
maybe the software side, programming things of that nature that

(18:28):
really do kind of coincide really heavily with like computer engineering.
I know, for my specific role right now, I work
with mechanical engineers because some parts are electrical mechanical parts, right,
So it's always a decision of are we considering this
triple lead part electrical, electrical and electronic part, or is

(18:51):
this considered more of a mechanical part, right, you know,
And kind of incorporating both of those together to make
this function could kind of really make you understand, like,
you know, how much you need to know about at
least basic mechanical engineering applications and things like that. So
it is important to touch on a little bit of everything,

(19:13):
you know. I have some friends who do work with
civil engineers and deustrial engineers things of that nature, and like,
you know, their specific company and their role in that
company might be a little more aligned with those kind
of disciplines. You know, whether it's a company that builds
construction something like that, you kind of have to work

(19:33):
all those together. So you do have to get a
little bit of knowledge of every kind of engineering to be,
in my opinion, a successful electrical engineer. So yeah, I
love that great explanation. Yeah, so now I want to
ask about how, since electrical engineering is such a broad field,

(19:53):
what are some different career paths that people can take
that they might not be aware of. Okay, so this
is a great question. So, like I said, well, we
just talked to like computer engineering, right, and so there's
that that's very heavily under there. There's you know, power systems.
I focused a little bit of that in grad school,

(20:14):
so that's a very popular field in engineering. There's signal processing,
there's robotics. You know, Aeronatus could fall in their electrical engineering.
There's a lot of different fields. I even had friends
from like when I was an undergrad that actually went
on to like law school and everything. It's very broad.
It's a very broad field. And so you know, I

(20:37):
have friends who are audio engineers and things of that nature.
And so electric code is a very broad umbrella. And
there's a lot of things that fall under it that
a lot of people don't think to realize, you know.
Like I had a friend who wanted to be a DJ,
and that's all he ever wanted. He just wanted to
be a DJ. He thought his parents were very traditional
and they're like, you're going to college, I don't care

(20:58):
what you study. And so he ended up doing electrical
engineering and it actually helped him in his career of
being a DJ. Yeah, some he was able to do
that full time with some knowledge and background that other
DJs probably don't have because they just started out, you know,
being a DJ and then going that route. So it
does in case a lot a lot of different disciplines.

(21:20):
And so I always tell people, especially starting not in engineering,
if you're an electrical engineering and you feel like, I
don't know if I want to stick with this, wait
it out a little bit. Because I didn't find out
what I really liked to do until my junior year college,
and within engineering, I should say, so sometimes you got
to stick it out and take those different electives and

(21:42):
figure out, Okay, this is the path I want to
be on. And so, yes, did y'all hear that, Jeb
stick it out? Stick it out, but yes, you sometimes
don't find out what you like till very late. My
friend's little sister, she went for mechanical engineering and she
felt the same way. She was like, I don't know
if I like this, And I told her, I was like,

(22:03):
you might not have taken the class. Yeah, it's usually
that one class that really like turns it around for
you and makes you realize, Okay, this is what I like,
and this is what I wanna do, and when I
go to the industry, this is what I'm gonna try
to get into. So yeah, no, right, So I'm gonna ask,
how do you see the build of electrical engineering changing
over the next five to ten years? Un believe with

(22:27):
the new technologies that are coming about. I feel like
it's gonna be like a shift from kind of the
older product and service driven kind of engineering companies such
as TI, HP, Dell, Yeah, two more of the software
based companies like Apple, Google, Yahoo. I joined NESVIV about

(22:48):
twenty ten twenty eleven. Can you explains? NETSB is the
natural Society of Black Engineers. So it's the largest student
running organization in the world, and it's for black engineers,
but anybody could be a member and that's be but
that is who the organization focus is on. So they
don't know what the acronym stand even though we know.

(23:10):
I'm like the cycle in your words. So one thing
I noticed, like going to the earlier career fairs versus
going now, you still see a lot more software based
companies at these career fairs. Like I said, you used
to see, well, you still see in addition to the
older companies, you know, the product driven companies, yeah, and

(23:31):
service driven companies. You'll see a lot more software driven companies.
So now we have Twitter there, Now we have Snapchat there,
now we have Facebook there. You know, those type of
companies that are more software driven companies seem to be
very popular. You know, brick and mortars kind of moving
out in the s you know, retail world yup, and
you know you're getting exactly it's kind of the same

(23:55):
shift you see in the engineering world as well. Oh wow.
So I always tell people who are thinking about engineering,
especially electric current engineering, to kind of hone in on
those like software skills, those programming skills, those digital analytics
and things of that. Those type of skills those are
really really gonna be taken off and are still taking

(24:15):
are currently taken off, you know, next five to ten
years in this industry, so good. Are think any certification
you would recommend to software engineers out there are people
in the workforce I said that can help with kind
of that software tip you mention. Yeah, so I would
definitely say learn the languages. There's a lot of programming languages.
There's a lot of them. Java seeds to be pretty popular.

(24:39):
Ramming skills, you know, Java seed pound, those type of
languages are very important. And also if you can and
if you know you have the time to get in
a professional engineering degree is really helpful. It's such a
imis your resume really stand out and really strong. I
guess other candidates if you are like socially for a
job or an like that. So I definitely think that

(25:03):
you know, having those type of skills are very important
if you're running it into software engineering. Yeah, knowing how
the program is gonna be key to getting into a
lot of these biggering companies, these being software companies. Thank you.
That's excellent. I wanted to ask, because you have your
master's in electrical engineering as well, what made you pursue

(25:25):
a master's while already working in the field and how
is it help advance your career. So I decided I
wanted to get a master's degree probably my first semester
of my senior year. And the reason was because I
felt like, even though I had intern I didn't have
enough industry experience where I felt confident into knowing what
I wanted to do once I graduated. Right, So it

(25:47):
was like a decision to help me build my resume
and kind to make me a stronger candidate, and also
give me a little bit more time to do more
internships and stuff like that and kind of venture out
a little bit more to see what I really wanted
to do when I graduated. Yeah, So with that being said,
I figured, alright, you know, i'm'a do what I can
to keep my grades real hot, cause I do wanna
get into grad school and I wanna get into a

(26:09):
pretty good grad school. So yeah, my senior year, you know,
I kept my grades up, finished out my classes, and
started looking at schools to apply to YM. Fortunately, in
the midst of doing all that in my search, I
got a job at a national research laboratory in New
Mexico and they actually offered to pay for my grad school. Yeah,

(26:32):
and it did in exchange for me coming to work
for them a couple months after I graduated. Yeah, so
of course I couldn't pass up on that off for
amazing UNI, you know, guarantee job and free grad school.
So after I graduated, I started working with them. I
applied to Texas A and M University, Yeah, and got
accepted into that school. And so I applied under the

(26:55):
electrical engineering program and ended up attending their m s.
He was to attended net school or follow twenty fourteen,
so yeah, that's excellent. Yeah, so how did you balance
work full time? Well? Did you work full time while
you were doing that or they did it after So
while we was on campus, we did not. We weren't
required to work, okay, and so our job was to

(27:18):
be a student full So it was they gave you
three semesters to get through the graduate program. Okay, So
it was about that credit, so about ten credits a semester. Okay,
that's bad. Yeah, not too bad. And so we only
had to work full time in the summertime, so it
came between semesters. Excellent. Yeah, so it wasn't bad at all.

(27:39):
And so while in school, I didn't have to worry
about balancing. We was paid sixty percent of our salary
while we was on campus. That's a still yeah, Okay,
it was especially when you're broke college. Go for being
to broke college. Yeah, and while you're like at college
but had money, it's like such a different experience. But
it was really nice. And so summertime we came, we

(28:00):
worked for those three months, you know, at the laboratories,
and then we went back to school and you know,
got our degrees. So yeah, so do they still have
that program for anybody that'll be interested or yeah. This
is called the Master's Fellowship program and this was my
former companies in the National Laboratory. So if you are
looking to get a free master's degree in engineering, it
has to be under Engineering. Okay, that is a good

(28:22):
company to look at. Okay, I won't put that in
the show notes in YouTube underneath thing. People are interested,
So thank you for sharing that. I like, you know,
people don't know about it until yeah burn him out
though I was so I didn't know about it either
until the recruiter I spoke with. I actually spoke with
him at a Black Engineer the Year Award its conference. Beya, heya, hey, Uh,
we spoke, he took my resume. He was, you know,

(28:44):
impressed with my job, skilled, my GPA at the time
and all that. So yeah, he was like, yeah, I'm
gonna keep this and I will reach out to you.
And I was like okay, you know. And I didn't
hear for three months, so yeah, you know whatever. But
one day they called and they was like, we wanna
fight in Mexico. I'm do what interview called his master's program.
And I was like, okay, that's amazing, so I will

(29:04):
have that research lab. In the show notes, you see,
everybody has such great journeys. So getting back to your career, Okay,
what is the best piece of career advice you've ever seend.
The best piece of career advice, which I tell everybody,
is to network networks. A lot of times it's not
what you know or even what you did, a lot

(29:25):
of times it's who you know. And so when you're
out and you're at these in your if you're in college,
even if you're in your career, go to conferences, go
to networking events, join your local netsby, go to their
social events, network with people and get to know people
because that will really help drive your career. I have

(29:47):
a lot of friends scattered out throughout the whole country,
and they, you know, are great resources if I ever
were to want to relocate, if I was ever looking,
you know, I could hit them for references and things
like that. It's important to talk to people. It's so important,
Yeah that no looking at Okay, is there anything you
would've done different in your stam journey? I think what

(30:10):
I The only thing I would have done differently for
me personally is I probably would have been more vigilant
about networking earlier in my college uh like matriculation, because
I feel like, you know, engineers are kind of known
to be a little more shy and introverted naturally, and
I think for me that probably helped me back to
s from some opportunities that I could got could have

(30:32):
gotten on earlier, or you know, been more exposed to.
Had I been able to like kind of jump out
of my shell a little bit better. Right, So, I
think for me, it's just you know, meeting the right people,
being in the right rooms. Her you're more vigilant about,
you know, going to nextby conferences. It was always like,
oh I don't have the money to go or something
like that, and that really probably would have helped shake

(30:54):
my career differently, had I been able to, you know,
figure out a way to make it happen, you know
what I mean, and try to get in a room
and find out, you know, is there scholarships for these
type of conferences? Is there you know, any type of
sponsorships or anything like that that will allow me to
you know, attend and you know, get out and meet
more people. So that's probably the one thing I probably

(31:16):
would have wish I did better. I love that and
me and you back through networking at a networking event
after I moved to Dallas and we're here now. Yes,
we did a great connection. So I want to ask,
have you been involved in any initiatives or minority groups
to help under represented groups to young women pursue Stanfields.

(31:36):
So I spoke to this a little bit earlier, so
I'll speak to it a little bit more in depth.
But the summer between my junior year and so, I
mean my sophomore year and junior year, excuse me up
high school. Yeah, I went to that program at RPI
rest by the Technic Institute that was aimed at getting women,
minority women specifically into engineering. So it was like our

(31:58):
first real introduction into engineering and just them in general.
So like, you know, they had us learning what engineering was,
learning the different disciplines of engineering. We were mentored under
these students who were currently attending the university under engineering,
and so it was a great resource to kind of
help get that exposure to us, you know where we

(32:19):
didn't have it before. None of us you know, had
engineerings in our family or really you know, had that
exposure prior to this program. Yeah, so I think that
program was really really important and yeah, you know necessary.
So yeah, and what is the program Callegain? Did they
still have it? They don't. This program is back into
any two thousand and eight. Oh wow, yeah, yeah, but

(32:45):
they had sense, I believe like right before COVID or
during COVID they stopped doing the program, right, So, and
it was just like a local program, so it was
very specific. It was like, OK, people who lived in Troy,
New York. That makes sense, and yeah, so it wasn't
really like you know it it we have a lot
of exposure outside. But it was a great program. And
ironically I actually met somebody who I later reconnected with

(33:07):
in college. Yeah, at that program. He was from California. Yeah,
and then we ended up both in Texas at the
same time and both study engineering. Show World very small world.
So yeah, going from like kids to adults and like
seeing each other restriculated through this engineering was really cool. Yeah.
So it was a great program. It was a really
great program. I love that. Thank you. Janelle's problem. Next,

(33:29):
I wanted to ask what, uh, what advice would you
give to students that are looking into study electrical engineering.
So my advice, like I said a thousand times, already networking,
knowing people, stepping out of your shell, and networking doesn't
always mean like selling yourself engineering wise, just having conversation, right,
engaging with people, connecting you have like like Ben, you know,

(33:53):
things like that. There was a great lay, Yeah, a
great resource to stay connected to people cause you don't
know who knows who. Yeah, and so that could very
well be, you know, a five minute conversation and elevate
it could very well be your next job opportunity, your
next career, you know. So that's definitely a good one. Also,
I would say get a mentor. They will help you.

(34:15):
There are sometimes where you're it's like I wanna quit,
I'm done with this ice. It's too hard. This is
and that mentor is really important, not only for academic
but just for your mental and your emotional Sometimes you
need the advice to someone older, wiser, who's been in
your shoes right to help you keep pushing and really
like give you that push you need to help you

(34:37):
move successfully in your career. So find one in college,
and also find women professionally. You know, if you know
you wanna be doing X and you're doing why find
somebody doing X and see how they navigated their career
to get to where they are. That is very very important,
very important. So I would say that, and then I
would also say do a a lot of research in

(35:01):
sense of like, if you feel like, you know, I
need to, you know, go to this conference that I
can't find a way there, find out somebody's sponsors, you know,
you to go there, find out there's scholarships out there,
you know, really trying to make sure that she would
do a lot of background, like a lot of information

(35:22):
digging in the background, because it is important to be
in the right rooms with the right people. Yes, it's
very very important. So you know, I understand that times
are hard to get hard money gets scarce, you know,
things like that, it does happen, and I get that,
try to do your due diligence and seeing if you could,
you know, find a way there. You know, there was

(35:43):
times I wanted to go to a conference that could
not but I knew a friend who worked at the
airline and could give me a buddy pass and then
I get there some way. So it's like, you know,
work in the room and working you know, your networks
and figuring out how to navigate getting around it is
you were trying to get somewhere is very very important.
So yeah, I think, you know, really honing in on

(36:04):
those you know, social skills is extremely important, extremely important,
No problem, Thank you, And to close out, you've given
so many great tips of advice. Is there any other
tips of advice that you would give for a success
in navigating in the step industry, like how you've navigated
your journey because you know the path is not always

(36:24):
LINDI hear, but you can make it right right, So
do you have any you've seared so much any more?
Before we close out today, I would definitely say, you know,
find with you loving it. You know, engineering is a
great field and you know, being transparent about what you
want and if this is where you see yourself happy. Yeah,

(36:46):
it's very very important. You know, my friends, I have
a lot of friends that started in engineering and that
carried them to a certain point and then they realize
I wanna do law, or I wanna do sales, or
I wanna do something else. But being able to be
on it's an open and real about it is very
important because the last thing you want is to be
stuck somewhere for forty years and miserable. Yeah. So, and

(37:08):
that's the very common trouble with a lot of older generations.
And so I think, you know, being able to you know,
find out if there's you know, maybe engineering is self
is not it. But I do like managing people, so
maybe I could be a manager of this engineering group,
but not necessarily the engineer itself. Yeah, you know, those
are very important. And I would say if your early career,

(37:29):
find out if you guys have like a rotational program. Yes,
those are very important because a lot of times you'll
find out what you want to do. You might not
have to leave the company, you might not have to
go on a thousand interviews. What you want could be
right under your nose. You just don't know that, yeah,
and so being able to like find out you know this.
My company offers this program, and there's so many programs

(37:51):
at every company that's so different from each other, but
also help you reach your goal of like finding out
what you love. Yeah it wise Yeah, so I love.
Thank you for joining us on All. Thanks, appreciate it.
Thank you for being a guest on All. Thanks. Then
with Ashley. Everyone, check out our episode and please like,
a subscribe and comment. We look forward to more great

(38:13):
guests than we will see you. Bye.