Preparing Yourself for Your Future in STEM fields

1
Preparing Yourself for Your Future in STEM fields

• By Lisa L. Kinsman, P.E.
• Aviation Engineer
• Mead Hunt, Inc.
• 1999 UW-Platteville Alumni

2
Congratulations!

• All of you students here tonight are studying for
  careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and
  Math otherwise known as STEM fields. These are
  careers that will be in demand in the future, are
  fulfilling, and are rewarding.

3
Purpose of this Speech

• Give you some advice and outline the things that
  I think are important to set you all up for a
  successful future.
• I have broken my presentation up into 4 parts
• Advice for college life to prepare you for the
  future
• Tips for getting a job
• Advice on things you can do to start your career
  off on the right foot
• Balancing family life and a career
• Hopefully you will find it helpful.

4
The College Years

• Here I am on my graduation date back in 1999.
• I learned a lot in my years at UWP.
• Here are tips for success in college and ways to
  position yourself for getting a great job.

5
Things to do in college

• Complete a co-op or internship
• Get good grades and study hard
• Have a study group or study buddy
• Be social and network
• Join organizations and clubs
• A network of friends and acquaintances will help
  you later in life while looking for a new job or
  even looking to win a new project for your firm.
  

6
Lets move on to getting a job and job hunting in
a tough economy.

• This is a tough job market.
• So what do you need to do to get a job and what
  got me my job when I graduated?

7
Job Hunting 101 Use your network.

• Did you complete a co-op or internship?
• If you did a co-op, great. Look to that past
  employer and see if there are any openings.
• Contact your former supervisor from that
  internship and ask them how the company is doing
  and if they are or will be hiring in the near
  future.
• If they are not hiring, ask if you can use them
  as a reference or a practice interview.
• Call other people in your network.

8
Job Hunting 101 Look professional and have a
flawless resume.

• Look professional, dress toward the conservative
  side rather than the trendy side.
• You need a flawless resume.
• Checked by an English Major.
• Take it to the writing center or the career
  placement center.

9
Job Hunting 101 Research your prospective
employer.

• Your prospective employer will be very impressed
  when you ask questions that show you know a lot
  about the company.
• Ask the names of the people who will be
  interviewing you and then Google them. It will
  be a great icebreaker when you mention something
  about an article they wrote for a publication or
  mention the prestigious award that they won .
• During your interview say something or ask a
  question that shows you did your homework and
  know about the company.

10
Job Hunting 101 Be prepared for tough interview
questions.

• Put together a list of possible interview
  questions and know ahead of time how you would
  answer them.
• Having that deer in the headlight look is never
  a comfortable situation.

My son, Lawsons best deer in the headlights
look.
Your deer in the headlights look if unprepared.
11
Job Hunting 101 Interview as much as possible.

• Sign up for every on campus interview and go to
  every possible interview you can.
• It is time consuming but you owe it to yourself.
• If anything else, interviewing is good practice.
  
• I went on over 15 interviews and learned a lot
  along the way. I came out of the interview
  process with 3 job offers and my preferred
  company changed from one firm to another by the
  end of the interview process.

12
Succeeding in your new career.

• So you have a job. Great. Here are a few tools
  to get you prepared for the challenges of your
  new job.

13
Career 101 A good mentor.

• Find a good mentor or ask about mentorship
  programs at your work.
• Your mentor can share their technical knowledge
  teach you about the company culture and
  generally watch out for you.
• You can also have more than one mentor.
• You can also have some mentors that are not at
  your workplace.

14
Career 101 Confidence

• Be confident in your abilities.
• You will be tested more than the men so
  confidence is important.
• If you are not sure about something, admit it and
  find the answer. Otherwise be confident in your
  design and decisions.
• I could spend hours telling you stories about how
  my self confidence and my knowledge were tested.
  

15
Career 101 Relate to the guys.

• I would suggest, picking up a few hobbies that
  will make you more relatable to men and people in
  general.
• Fill out the office NCAA basketball pool,
• watch the Badger football and basketball games,
• brush up on your golf game.
• At one of the male dominated conferences I
  attend, sport clay shooting is one of the social
  events. I must admit I havent picked up that
  hobby yet.

16
Career 101 Join professional organizations.

• Join LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com)
• The professional networking site just as MySpace
  and Face book are the social networking sites.
• Tone down the MySpace and Face book sites. Make
  sure the content you have on them project you as
  a professional.
• Join other professional organizations such as the
  Society of Women Engineers (SWE), American
  Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), you get the
  picture.
• But, only join them if you have the time to be an
  active member.

17
Career 101 If you make a mistake, learn from it
and move on.

• I think women tend to beat themselves up over
  things and dwell on mistakes more than men.
• It seems that men chalk their mistakes up to a
  learning experience and move on quickly.
• I always tell the interns that I am working with
  is that my philosophy is that you learn the most
  from things that go wrong and the mistakes that
  are made. The trick is to never make the same
  mistake twice.

18
Career 101 A new job, not a new career.

• You have been at your employer for several weeks
  or maybe even several months and you find
  yourself unhappy with your job and want a change?
  
• My biggest advice to you is that maybe you need
  to work in a new department, a new position, or a
  new company and not a new career or major.
• I have noticed that there a quite a few women who
  drop out of the engineering fields and never get
  back in. It seems that when women become
  unhappy in their career they think, maybe
  engineering is not for me after all.
• When I started my job out of college I started in
  a department that I found out quickly was not for
  me. I was miserable and debated going back to
  school for a different degree. I thought that I
  was mistaken about what engineering was about.
  Within a month I changed departments within the
  same company and could not have been happier and
  have been in the same department ever since.

19
Career 101 Put forward extra effort.

• Work hard and be efficient!
• You need to be extra organized and keep a
  planner. Missing meetings or deadlines will get
  you nowhere fast!
• Stay a little late and come in early.
• Offer to help a coworker with a tight deadline
  by coming in on a Saturday.
• These things will show you are a team player and
  are ambitious.
• Lets face it, you also have a lot to learn and
  those extra hours at work is time you will be
  learning.
• But, also learn how to say no so your desk
  doesnt look like this.

20
Career 101 At work, venture outside your
comfort zone.

• Socialize with or go to lunch with people who are
  not exactly like you. You will learn a lot, and
  it will improve your people skills.
• It shows that you have the capability to grow up
  within the company, relate to other people and
  shows you are a team player.
• This is kind of like dressing for the job you
  want not the job you have. You are showing you
  have the ability to one day be a leader of people
  from all different age groups and backgrounds.

21
Career 101 Understand Generational Differences.

• A lot of your coworkers will be from different
  generations than you and some will be . . . just
  like your parents.
• Your coworkers will think differently than you,
  communicate differently and have different value
  than you. Respect all work styles and values of
  people from different age groups.
• My experience with this are people at my work who
  hate email. I respect that and walk down the
  hall to talk to them or give them a call.

22
Career 101 Build relationships.

• There is nothing like a face to face meeting or
  at a minimum a phone conversation to start
  building trust.
• In todays technology climate, everyone is
  connected by easy communication such as email,
  text messaging and instant messages but these
  forms of communication only build casual working
  relationships.
• One piece of advice that has always stuck with my
  that was given to me was this. Once you
  graduate with a degree, it is expected that you
  have the ability to do the technical work and to
  do it well. The thing that will distinguish you
  from others and forward your career is if you
  have the ability to develop relationships with
  clients, coworkers and superiors. If you can be
  strong technically and a great salesperson, the
  sky is the limit.

23
Balancing Family Life and a Career

• Your career and life is great and is very
  comfortable. You have plenty of time to devote
  to work and your hobbies. What could possibly
  change?
• How about . . . a family! It is no longer about
  what is best for me but what is best for my
  family.

24
Your work situation can change as you change
personally.

• If you decide to have a family, you will be the
  busiest and most efficient you have ever been in
  your life, yes including finals week in college.
  
• You can have it all if you know what is important
  to you.
• Careful balance of work life and family life.
• Maybe you are not the first one in and the last
  one to leave. That is OK. Just be super
  efficient while you are at work.
• Maybe you work part time for a while.
• Before my son was born, I travelled a lot. When
  I became pregnant with my son, I knew I wanted my
  travel schedule had to change permanently.
  Luckily there were a lot of men in my department
  that had already gone down the same path I was
  going down. They had spent many years travelling
  but now that they had a young family, they wanted
  to be around a bit more. Luckily my company is
  willing to work with valuable employees and make
  sure there is a good work life balance.

25
Rewards

• Remember Life is Short You can never redo a
  day. Finding the right mix between work and
  family and fun is necessary to make sure you have
  no regrets down the road.

26
Conclusion

• In conclusion, I hope I have given you a bit of
  advice that will help you do well in college, get
  that great job, be happy in that great job and
  deal with the changes that a family may bring.