Yes I am a Rocket Scientist!

Many women are entering into what’s traditionally known as “a man’s world”. I am one of them. I am currently training to become an aerospace engineer, which is an industry predominantly dominated by men. Now many people don’t understand when I tell them what I do, I’ve had many answers resembling, “so you’re becoming a pilot?” or “oh, an air hostess?” These are of course rather far off the mark. I am actually learning to fix aircraft and this requires an intellect capable of combining maths and physics with design and hand skill. Oh, and I have also had people refer to me as a “mechanic”, this is not true as I am an engineer and the two are different. So just to clear that up, I am not a mechanic! 

As stated above, yes I am still in training. This means I am a poor student, still living at home and have to remember my books and pencil case every day! As I am primarily based in a classroom 95% of the time it still feels very much like school, there are still the particular people that act like kids and disrupt the lesson. As female engineers are scarce, I am the only woman in my class. This itself creates opportunities but also problems. The men are there to help me when I need it and vice versa, however I can be subjected to female jokes and jibes. I let as much as I can sweep over my head and not take them personally as to work in an environment surrounded by men you need to ‘become one of the lads‘ and this is what I try to achieve. I am not trying to ‘fit in’, I am merely being myself and I feel very comfortable in that setting. I have always been a tomboy and therefore get on well the guys and we have a lot in common. 

I know I shouldn’t admit this but of course I feel intimidated by the guys if I do not understand something mechanically, or have trouble performing a particular task in the workshop. However, I am there to learn and the truth is not all the guys know what they’re doing either! I help them out with any classroom work and they help me out with any hand skill work. At the end of the day we are all in it together and we are all travelling down the same road to find success. Everyone finds particular things difficult or hard to understand and therefore we must all help each other rather than putting other people down. 

Of course, as the title suggests, I am not actually a rocket scientist but the mention of “aerospace engineering” gets many impressed looks and the maths and physics content proves how intellectually challenging it actually is. Therefore, as rocket science is considered to be the most intellectual job in the world I thought it suited! 

I do not consider myself to be incredibly intellectual, however I do consider myself to be hardworking, diligent and willing to learn at every avenue. I can achieve many things if I put my mind to it and I must work very hard in order to achieve those things. It does not just come naturally to me, especially in a new setting such as engineering. At school I took the normal GCSE’s and chose other subjects I enjoyed. Then at A Level I chose the subject I was the best at, English, and two other subjects I was curious about, Psychology and Philosophy. As you can see these do not reflect engineering in any way and I count myself lucky to have been given the opportunity to join the course I am on. Maybe it was a gender thing, but even if it was I wanted to be on the course and I got on it! I did however do some work experience at an airport and learnt new skills and demonstrated I had some ability to use tools and ‘make stuff!’ Maybe it was the lesson my Dad gave me before I started the week at the airport. He got his tool box out and showed me and named all of the tools he had and I had a go at drilling, hammering and sawing! I will always be grateful to my Dad for being there when I need him most.

Anyway, I could go on for hours about my experience so I will leave it for another blog :) 

MissRocketScientist