"Unconventional"
A group of us went to the SWE "Unconventional Jobs in Engineering" panel at MIT tonight. It was kind of disappointing in that the women on the panel didn't have jobs that we consider to be terribly unconventional. On the ride home, we discussed this, and concluded that an engineer with an MBA must have seemed a lot more unusual 10 or 20 years ago than it does now. There were ideas tossed around for who we would have wanted to see on an "unconventional engineers" panel... engineers in the media, in policy, in law (there was a patent lawyer on the panel), engineers doing engineering work in unusual settings like the Peace Corps, or any business in which the vast majority of the employees are not engineers.
The panel had a very limited amount of time in which to speak, and I wish they had talked more about how their engineering degrees influenced them in their current work. They did answer some questions about work/life balance, and how to deal with employees who don't want to accept you. Nuggets of wisdom gleaned: (a) Have children early! When you have your first child at 40, you won't have the energy. Don't worry about whether it's convenient to have kids right now--things will work out! (b) Find your life partner. (they didn't offer a lot of suggestions for how to go about this). (c) To fit in at work, act like "one of the boys." Don't wear feminine clothing--stick to khakis and button-up shirts. When the guys are checking out women in the cafeteria or telling dirty jokes, just laugh along so they'll accept you as one of them. (I don't like this. At all. But I've been hearing it often, recently, at SWE events. Is this the reality of what you have to do to get by in the real world?)
And then the panel answered a question about what were the most valuable skills they gained in college. Their answers were pretty Olin-validating:
The panel had a very limited amount of time in which to speak, and I wish they had talked more about how their engineering degrees influenced them in their current work. They did answer some questions about work/life balance, and how to deal with employees who don't want to accept you. Nuggets of wisdom gleaned: (a) Have children early! When you have your first child at 40, you won't have the energy. Don't worry about whether it's convenient to have kids right now--things will work out! (b) Find your life partner. (they didn't offer a lot of suggestions for how to go about this). (c) To fit in at work, act like "one of the boys." Don't wear feminine clothing--stick to khakis and button-up shirts. When the guys are checking out women in the cafeteria or telling dirty jokes, just laugh along so they'll accept you as one of them. (I don't like this. At all. But I've been hearing it often, recently, at SWE events. Is this the reality of what you have to do to get by in the real world?)
And then the panel answered a question about what were the most valuable skills they gained in college. Their answers were pretty Olin-validating:
- problem-solving
- teamwork
- learning to learn
- "I can survive anywhere"
- comfortable with numbers and technical details (okay, so this one is not very Olin-specific)
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