I'm an electrical engineer and been working now for 12 out of the past 15 years (a few years off scattered amongst it while travelling and raising small children). I've had the same job now for about 10 years (working full time for 6 of those years - 2 years off baby-wrangling - and 2 years part...
I work as an applications engineer for a substation products company. I spend a few weeks a year commissioning or troubleshooting in the field and the rest of the time in the office or speaking to customers in their office. It's a nice balance for me, although the field work has had to stop...
And yet, Mechanical Animal, many women take up nursing. Which, from what I can tell, gets your hands dirtier, involves heavier lifting and involves higher levels of personal danger than anything I've dealt with in my engineering career.
Don't come in to a new site and assume that the first women you see is the secretary. Bounding up to someone and saying 'Hi are you the secretary?' is not a great way to start a business relationship with a potential customer.
I'm not a sales engineer either but I have met a few.
I've taken a career break of one year early in my career. I took off for a year to travel. I didn't keep in touch with the industry at all while I was away and found work easily enough when I got back, in spite of a job slump.
My tip would be to have the email addresses of a couple of key...
I think that most engineers distrust, or even loathe, the word 'status'.
And I defnitely agree that describing what we do is difficult. The best I've been able to come up with is that I cause blackouts (protection engineer). Hardly anything for most people to get excited about.
I've been giving this a bit more thought and I do think that one of the important issues when it comes to keeping women in engineering is having friends in the workforce. I've seen the occasional news article on the importance of friends for women in the workforce in Australia (shall see if I...
I've never met a female engineering manager or a female engineer that had become a project manager. I haven't even met a female engineer over the age of 35..
Maybe it's the countries I've worked in (Australia and the UK). I've been working as an engineer for 8 years and haven't seen much...
It sounds like you've got your priorities straight, Scotty :)
My mum's a nurse and two of my favourite lines from her were:
"don't get blood on the carpet" and
"you know where the bandaids are"...
My husband and I are both engineers. Most female engineers I know have married other...
