Author: engirlneer

As women, we are known for doubting ourselves. No matter how solid our abilities are, we often don’t believe in them or ourselves. We are always trying to prove ourselves and often feel like we don’t deserve praise when we receive it.

Conversely, when we receive criticism, we often take it personally. This can be a huge detriment to our self-confidence, and greatly impact how we feel about our career choice. If we go to work every day feeling like we are letting others down, or not succeeding where we should be, we may begin to think we should move on to a less technical career.

In fields dominated by technically-minded people, it can be difficult to receive a lot of criticism and still feel like you made the correct career choice. Oftentimes, supervisors or managers in technical fields lack emotional intelligence and don’t know how to communicate in a way that doesn’t come off as condescending or arrogant. They can be stubborn and set in their ways. Often, these managers are promoted based on technical ability and are given little training on how to actually supervise or mentor younger staff. Some managers may not even want that role, but their company may include it as a requirement of a senior or leadership position.

Even if you feel like your work was amazing, if it’s different than what your manager had in mind, it can lead to conflict that will usually end in favor of your manager’s position. Self-doubt begins to creep in, and if it happens often enough, it can make you feel like you just aren’t cut out for that line of work.

It’s important to teach any engirlneer in your life to be confident in her abilities, even in the face of criticism. She is smart and knows what she is talking about. She wouldn’t have made it through her degree program if she didn’t have the technical skills to succeed. Her ideas and opinions are valid, even if others disagree. Her ideas won’t always be chosen as the best solution, but she can still contribute to the final product and deliver a quality document to the client. More importantly, she can contribute to the future of her career and make this world a better place.

Science, technology, engineering, and math, collaboratively, STEM, is a huge business. It seems like anything that requires assembly is now considered STEM to capture parents’ attentions and make them feel like a toy provides some sort of intellectual benefit.

My niece recently purchased a STEM activity the allows her to make edible eyeshadow. However, after spending $12 on the kit, we soon discovered that it came with a cheap plastic eyeshadow container, a brush, and two measuring spoons. The rest of the ingredients had to be purchased separately. The entire cost of the rest of the ingredients was $5. What should have been a $10 lesson turned into $17, all in the name of STEM. Additionally, instead of it being a project that required problem solving and critical thinking, it was really a project about creating makeup, which reinforced stereotypes for her that we have tried very hard to avoid.

While cosmetics are a huge industry that employs many STEM professionals, it shouldn’t be the only way girls are targeted as a demographic, either related to STEM or not.

Parents should know there are so many ways to teach their children about STEM that don’t break the bank and that really do reinforce STEM topics. Do a quick search on YouTube or Google for “engineering,” “science,” “technology,” or “math” outreach activities, and you can find instructions for hundreds of activities which cost very little to do with your children.

Remember that STEM is about solving problems. If you really want to teach your daughter about STEM projects and careers, do a quick search for interesting projects related to the above, and TALK to your daughter about them. You could create bridges or learn about solar energy. The internet can be a tool to help broaden your engirlneer’s horizon.  It is often a much better place to learn ways to teach your daughter about STEM than purchasing an expensive kit that is disguised as STEM, but in actuality just perpetuates the often dangerous stereotype that girls are only concerned with appearance.

You can also turn your daughter’s toys into an Engirlneer with a little imagination. The dolls below started off as Disney Princess dolls: Tiana, Cinderella, Alana, Anna, Mulan, and Pocahontas. But with a little imagination, some new hairstyles, and a quick change of clothes (some of which are courtesy of Ken), these dolls quickly transform into the Engirlneers Tatiana, Sally, Betty, Gillian, Chloe, and Elan.

Instead of your daughter playing Disney Princesses and imagining a scenario where her doll must be rescued by a Prince, your daughter could turn her doll into an Engirlneer and rescue not only herself but her community, as well. A quick search of STEM projects can inspire your daughter to join the Engirlneers in solving problems STEM professionals would actually face, one in which she and the Engirlneers can save the day.

Unfortunately, girls have been programmed to play with traditional gender roles assigned to their toys. Even when a company tries to branch out and include girls, they simply apply a cosmetic fix to the toys (i.e., painted the construction equipment pink to make it more “girlie”). Often, these toys don’t sell well.

Unfortunately, many girls just don’t know what to do with certain types of toys. Girls tend to create scenarios in which their dolls are raising children, heading to the beach, going dancing, etc. This may be attributed to the fact the girls imagine scenarios with dolls in which they engage in personal conflicts, as they often see perpetuated by traditional “girls” toys, like Barbie and more recently Monster High. Most girls don’t know how to create scenarios in which an excavator would be needed because this isn’t generally what they associate with women.

Even if they have women in their lives who do this type of work, they aren’t likely seeing it on an up-close and personal level. To get that to change, parents really need to research ways in which these types of toys could be used in a career and engage in play scenarios with their daughters to teach them what these pieces of equipment do.

The possibilities with STEM are endless and, more importantly, cheap. If you take the time to learn about STEM activities you will quickly learn ways in which to engage your daughter and teach her to become an Engirlneer without breaking the bank to do so. You will teach also teach her to use her problem-solving skills in a way that’s fun!

“Quit” is often viewed as a bad word; synonymous with failure. People are scared of the concept of quitting. When you quit, you often feel like you’re disappointing someone. You may even feel like you’ve waste your time. giving up on something. You may even fear the idea of trying something different. However, if you acknowledge the reason why you’re scared to quit, you can overcome the fear, and start on a path to a happier life.

Fear of disappointing

One of the reasons people are afraid to quit is a fear disappointing someone else. As children, we often begin an activity because our parents encouraged us to: maybe they played softball as a child, and they think we will enjoy it just as much. Parents can invest a lot of time and money for their child to participate in an activity, and children don’t want to feel like they’ve wasted their parents’ resources, so they go along in an activity, being miserable the whole time.

This fear of quitting or disappointing others carries into adulthood. Women may feel like they can’t stand up for what they want because they will disappoint someone in the process.  There may be a better job opportunity within their current company, but your engirlneer feels like she owes her employer something. She could see that the employer has invested a lot of time and money into training her, and she feels a loyalty to the company. However, we need to teach our engirlneers that they should never stick with something that makes them unhappy just to please someone else. She needs to jump at every opportunity to better her life and increase her happiness.

There will always be a new employee to replace her position if she leaves. Her absence is not going to completely break a company. The hard truth is that in our current economy and corporate fields, employers look after their best interests. While it may seem ungrateful, or selfish, individuals need to be looking after their careers and happiness just as much as corporations look after their own success.

This attitude needs to be taught at a young age. You need to encourage your engirlneer to be open and honest about the activities she is involved in, and whether she is happy doing them. If she tells you she wants to quit something, sit down, have a conversation, and figure out a different activity that will allow her to grow but she will enjoy in the process. Teaching your engirlneer to think critically about her likes and dislikes and having her learn to express those same feelings will help her in every aspect of her professional, academic, and personal life. Self-reflection is an important skill for her to master.

Fear of wasted time

Another reason we have such a hard time quitting something is because we have invested so much time, money, and energy into it. Students are graduating college with an absurd amount of debt. If they discover they don’t enjoy the career they’re in, they feel like they’ve wasted an incalculable time and resources.

A person can spend decades in a career that isn’t satisfying just because they’re too stubborn to change direction. Instead of facing their disappointment head on and changing careers, they jump from employer to employer trying to satisfy a craving that they never will.

The important thing to teach your engirlneer is that life is a journey and choosing to go a different direction does not negate all the hard work she put in. No one would continue to walk toward the end of a cliff purely because they didn’t want to add another 5 miles to their journey. Changing direction can be the best thing for her.

Additionally, even if she wants to change careers, she has most certainly learned valuable skills from the career she started with. These skills will translate to multiple careers, whether it’s her ability to communicate, work with technology, or manage and coordinate projects. These skills don’t disappear because it no longer fits into her defined position requirements.

This same philosophy applies in every aspect of life, whether it’s professional activities, personal relationships, or leisure activities. The important thing is to realize what skills she has learned so she can pack them with her for the next journey.

Fear of the unknown

The fear of the unknown is a huge reason why people are afraid to quit. “The grass isn’t always greener,” is thrown out by employers a lot to persuade an unhappy employee to continue in a position that isn’t the right fit for them. Help your engirlneer understand that oftentimes, employers utilize this form of intimidation because they don’t want to be in the position of hiring someone new to do her work. While your engirlneers IS replaceable, it may cost a company more money to ensure someone is trained properly to take over her position.

Your engirlneer could also be unhappy with her current job, but she at least knows what to expect. She may know she is respected, has a stable job, will get a standard of living raise every year, and can go on vacation without it becoming an issue with her supervisor. When a new offer comes her way, she may hesitate because she worries it will be even worse. She needs to remember how unhappy she is at her current position, and realize that while there is a chance the job turns out to be worse than her current one, it could also turn out to be much more fulfilling and enjoyable for her.

When I hear someone say they turned down a job because they weren’t sure it would be any better, I think about the people that nearly cause a car wreck because they realized they are about to miss their exit, so they cut across four lanes of traffic. In the end, the person could’ve just taken a different exit and turned around. Similarly, nothing with a career is finite. If your engirlneer changes a company or a career, and she hates it, SO WHAT?!? She will have another opportunity to go somewhere else. Teach your engirlneers to take a chance for her happiness, and if that doesn’t work out, she can change again.

At the end of the day, your engirlneer should always put her happiness at the forefront of her choices.  She should never let a fear of disappointing others, fear of wasted time, or fear of the unknown prevent her from trying something new. Sometimes to try something new you have to quit something you’re used to. Taking that chance could be the best thing she’s ever done.

Many employers now require entry-level employees to have skills they don’t or won’t learn in their classroom.  While much of this trend can be traced back to advancements in technology, the trend towards a student entering the job market with a vast wealth of skills beyond their degree is not limited to technological careers.

Where once a researcher would use paper and pencil to record their findings, often there is a program for that now. The trend towards technology is only one example where your engirlneer’s broad knowledge in many different areas can serve her greatly outside of the classroom.

We no longer live in a world where education is limited to classroom experience.  Luckily, there are many opportunities for students at every stage of their education to explore and learn new skills.  While it is important for you to instill a love of learning in your engirlneer, it is also vital that you encourage her to take control of her own future at a young age.  Help your daughter understand that she will need to take charge of learning new skills her whole life. She will be responsible for her career path.

One of the simplest ways for your engirlneer to learn new skills is to have her take online courses.  There are many free or low-cost options where she can learn business skills, such as using spreadsheets or creating word documents.  Have her watch videos that have been posted online by others through services, such as Youtube®, that show her how to do specific tasks related to a topic she is interested in. She could take courses about computer programming or data science, or even photo editing.

Another simple way for her to learn new skills is for her to enroll in day camps or afterschool programs related to something that will help her in the future.  Search for programs online, use your networking skills, or connect with local professional organizations.

You can also teach your daughter business skills that you know, such as typing or creating presentations.  Teach her how to use spreadsheets to solve math problems or create charts.  It doesn’t have to be complicated, simple tutorials are fine. Set a time each week for you to teach her something you know.  This not only provides invaluable skills to her, but it also allows you and her to connect.

The important thing about learning new skills is that it can help your daughter learn what she likes.  Maybe she thinks she wants to be an accountant, but after really learning more about it, she discovers she absolutely hates it. Maybe she discovers that she’d actually rather be an electrician than an electrical engineer.  Maybe she discovers she can apply her artistic skills to designing logos or other marketing materials.

By helping your engirlneer expand her knowledge and skills outside of the classroom setting, you are setting her up for success academically, professionally, and in life. Teaching her that learning outside of the classroom can have many positive effects on her life will instill in her a thirst for knowledge as its own reward, and that mindset and attitude will benefit her greatly.

The term “networking” elicits a mental image of a conference or a trade expo.  While most adults network routinely, you may wonder how it applies to children.  Anyone can network, anywhere.  Networking is about establishing relationships that can be important in every aspect of life.

As a child, the most important relationship after the family is friendship. Often, these friendships are based on what games kids like to play or who was nice to them at lunch.  Too often, children don’t realize the importance of having these acquaintances.

I am not advocating for children to learn to use people.  Networking should always be done with mutual respect, and both parties should feel some sense of fulfillment from the arrangement.  Children should not just use someone to get what they want, but they should also know that they may only have one interest in common with someone, and it is okay if their association with this child can be limited to that activity.

This can also help foster respect for a child your engirlneer doesn’t necessarily want to play with outside of the shared activity.  For instance, maybe your engirlneer really wants to learn how to play piano, but she has no idea where to start.  Encourage her to be vocal about that interest, and if she hears that someone else plays piano, she can strike up a conversation to figure out where she can take lessons or what she needs to do.  The girls can use their love of the piano to foster a friendship based on that mutual interest.

The skill to network will help them in high school and college as well.  If your engirlneer is struggling with a class, but she knows a classmate is grasping the material more successfully than your daughter, she could reach out and ask for help from her classmate.  Your engirlneer could use her networking skills to improve her grade, and perhaps in the process she could find a way to help her new tutor with something she is struggling with.  The whole idea of networking is to have people you can lean on for help should the need arise.  It will help your engirlneer learn to ask for help if she needs it.

In college, attending career fairs, professional organization meetings, and even establishing a good relationship with a professor should all be considered networking.  These will give your engirlneer a way to connect with others she may need to lean on down the road for advice, professional development, recommendations, and many, many other reasons.

As a professional, networking is vital.  I’ve met so many people in so many different careers because of both my professional and personal interests.  I’ve connected with many of these people to fulfill both business and personal needs.  It’s so much easier to call someone to get a marketing quote if I have a relationship with them.  I’ve met so many people from so many backgrounds through my ability to connect, and it has helped make me a more rounded person.  The connections your engirlneer can make through networking can be just as rewarding!

How do you teach your engirlneer to network at a young age?  Encourage her to join activities related to her interests.  Encourage her to speak up in class about and activity she is interested in.  Teach her to never be embarrassed by an interest she has, even if it doesn’t fit into the traditional roles assigned to her by others.

Don’t let your engirlneer float through life without having to deal with other people.  The more connections she has can expand her world in so many ways, but she needs to be open to exploring these connections and not only interacting with people who think and act like she does.

Many Americans hate their jobs. This hatred can be blamed on many things: dislike for your boss, monotony, being unfulfilled at work, the list is long and varied. It’s disheartening to know so many people are unhappy in their careers, especially when you consider they took out an average of $37,172 in student loans in 2016.

There is no guarantee that a person is going to love their career choice, even if they’ve dreamed of it their whole life. Many people decide what they want to be at a young age, strive to achieve it, then hate it because it doesn’t live up to their expectations. Rarely will we find a career that syncs completely with our expectations, and even if it is everything we imagined, there is no guarantee that we will love the actual practice as much as we dreamed we would. In the real world, we must push to find one that matches us enough we can overlook the minor flaws.

So, how do you help the engirlneer in your life find the right career for her?

Here are some things for her to consider:
1) Does she want a desk job? Or does she want a job that requires physical labor?
2) Does she want a job that requires travel? Or does she want to primarily be at one location?
3) Does she want to work alone or with groups?
4) Does she want to deal with clients? Or does she want to focus on projects?
5) What is more important: money or fulfillment of another kind?

How can she determine what type of career she should have? I’m a huge fan of career and personality quizzes. Part of me just loves the psychology behind them. I suggest taking as many as possible.

Some of my favorite quiz websites are:

www.sokanu.com
www.16personalities.com (for your free knockoff Myers Briggs personality type)
https://www.princetonreview.com/quiz/career-quiz
https://www.mynextmove.org/explore/ip

Or you can find several more quizzes here: https://www.themuse.com/advice/the-11-best-career-quizzes-to-help-you-find-your-dream-job

Most of these quizzes give your engirlneer a broad idea of what she might be interested in pursuing. These quizzes are based on personality as opposed to abilities. It’s important for young girls to realize that much of their happiness in a career will be about whether it suits their personality not necessarily their technical abilities. For example, your engirlneer may be great at math, but the idea of sitting in a cubicle all day crunching numbers makes her cringe. Or maybe she enjoys geology but traveling for extended periods or working in extreme weather conditions might not be something she likes to do. These quizzes will help her determine what types of career environments and surroundings would best suit her.

Your engirlneer needs to be honest when answering the quiz questions. She should not try to answer questions the way she thinks they need to be answered, but rather answer them as truthfully as she can. For instance, some quizzes might ask if a white lie is acceptable. If she thinks it is, she should answer it that way (some careers may require stretching the truth, or have a lot of people in them who are dishonest). Career and personality quizzes will only help provide her insight if she is truthful with her answers. It’s important that you, as a parent and guide, explain that to her fully, because you don’t want her to end up in a career or environment she hates any more than she does.

Once she gets her results, don’t let her get discouraged if she is pointed away from a career field she had her heart set on. Help her analyze the results and encourage her to stay positive even if they don’t indicate the career she really wanted it to. A good way to do this would be to explore some of the careers that were suggested to her. These quizzes can help her figure out why her idealized career might not fit her personality or strengths, and exploring the other options with you may enliven another area of interest that she hadn’t even thought of as a career.

If she refuses to alter her ideal career, these quizzes will give her lines of inquiry about what aspects of a career are important to her. This can help her determine if she is willing to compromise on different aspects of her career.

Determining the type of work environment she ultimately wants to participate in can also offer great insight into whether her ideal career fits into her preferred environment. Most majors lead to a plethora of career opportunities: academia, consulting, government, private companies, research, etc. Each of these industries can have very different types of demands and work environments. If she loves engineering, but she doesn’t love the business side of things, maybe she should consider getting her Ph.D. and doing research and/or teaching. By exploring her likes and dislikes in this way, she can focus her academic and early career work toward a specific set of ultimate career opportunities.

By identifying what your engirlneer really wants to do with her life as early as possible, she can take a path that will lead to her desired career as seamlessly and stress-free as possible. While there will always be forks in the road, knowing her destination will help her keep her compass set to her ideal career.

Conflicts start at a young age; whether it’s a fight over toys or who spilled what, disagreements are inevitable. When kids go to school, they face conflicts over friends, who gets to pick the game, ride the playground equipment, etc. In the course of the conflict, feelings can get hurt, and your engirlneer may choose to not say anything for fear of losing her friends or making them mad. These fights may even turn physical or extremely hurtful, and you want to do something about it before someone really gets hurt. However, before you go to the teacher or even the friend’s parents, give your engirlneer the opportunity to resolve the conflict on her own. You, as her parent, won’t be able to fight all her battles for her. Encourage her to talk with her friend. Teach her that no one has the right to put someone else down, and that if she and her friend can’t resolve the conflict, then she should just stop hanging out with that friend.

If she has conflicts in school with teachers or coaches, make her do the initial talking to figure out a resolution. This will also teach her to resolve conflicts with people in an authority position, and can help her develop skills for her career. Let her have a voice and encourage her to use it proudly. She should stand up for what she believes in, and fight for it.

In her career, your engirlneer will need to advocate for herself in order to get a job and move up within her career. From the start, she will need to talk about her skills and accomplishments; most importantly, she will need to negotiate her salary. Companies want to save money and are not in the business of giving someone more than they have to. Your engirlneer will have to tell a company why she is worthy of a better salary. Her starting salary will have a huge impact on her overall earnings throughout her career. Someone who starts out earning $55,000 will earn almost $128,000 more over 20 years than someone who starts out earning $50,000 (at a 2.5% increase/year).

Your engirlneer will also face conflicts with her coworkers and her supervisors. There will be times when others take credit for her work. There will be times when she gets blamed for something going wrong when she had very little control over it (if any, at all). There will be times where she is “rewarded” for her good work by being given someone else’s work to do because they do a poor job. Her coworker will then be “punished” by getting paid to do nothing. Your engirlneer needs to have enough confidence to talk with her supervisor about the situation, and to advocate for her best interests.

Women have a hard time advocating for ourselves. We just don’t like talking about our accomplishments. For us, doing a good job is inherent, not something to be praised. So how do you teach your engirlneer to advocate for herself? Teach her how to PREPARE for instances when she will need to advocate for herself. She needs to write down the reasons why she deserves to be treated better, paid better, etc. She needs to have examples supporting her arguments. Then she needs to practice. Help her prepare by listening to her arguments. Encourage her to be relaxed and calm, but firm. Frequently ask her about something that she feels proud of, and why it makes her feel proud. And lastly, don’t put her down if she does tell you something amazing she did. Let her brag just a little.

No one really wants conflict in their lives, but the fact is that it exists in nearly every aspect of our daily lives. The earlier your engirlneer learns how to successfully navigate through these issues, the happier she will be.

Texting has become so prevalent that people text more than they call.

Even at work, texting has become the preferred method of communicating with your coworkers or subordinates.  It’s so quick, and it makes it so much easier to call in “sick” when you don’t have to feign a stuffy nose or the sound of death in your voice.

You can text someone when you don’t need an answer right away and don’t want to bother them.  It’s just so simple!

Along with texting, it seems like people also tend to communicate via email instead of calling.  Emails make it easy to include a lot of people in a conversation.  You can get input from multiple people who can’t agree on a time to actually meet. Email makes it easy for you to communicate with coworkers halfway around the world who are working while you’re sleeping.  Email makes it easy to organize your thoughts before you run them by someone else.  Email also automatically creates documentation of a conversation, whether you just don’t like having to write everything down, or you have other reasons for needing to document conversations with coworkers, clients, regulators, etc.  Email is also just a really easy way to avoid feeling embarrassed or nervous by having to pick up your phone and call a stranger.  I even email coworkers who are on the other side of my cubicle, just so they have a reminder of my needs instead of keeping track of it all on paper.

However, emailing or texting can be less efficient than just calling someone.  With technological communication, you may have 10 different exchanges before you actually come to a conclusion.  You may also have several emails that go off on a tangent, as some people continue moving forward with a group conversation before others have even read the first message.  You may get emails every 10 minutes and have a hard time ignoring them, so you get distracted from what you’re doing to take a peek and see what someone else wants.  If you close out of your email for an hour to accomplish something, you feel like you’re cheating someone out of a quick response.

Don’t misunderstand me, emails and texts have their place in the office.  But by far the most detrimental aspect of emailing or texting is loss of the personal connection you get by hearing someone’s voice or by walking over to talk to them.  We’ve all heard that texting or emailing leads to miscommunication.  We tend to “read into” people’s messages, assuming there’s a negative tone to the message, even when the sender meant no harm.  When you email or text more than you pick up a phone, you tend to read into messages so often, that you begin to get the wrong message from your coworkers.  You can feel like you don’t fit in, or like your isolated from your group.  These feelings can make you question your job or your abilities.  Picking up the phone instead of sending an email can take a weight off your shoulders.  You will also likely get an answer quicker, or work out details that you can’t quite “talk through” in an email.  If you want to document a phone conversation, take notes, and then send a follow-up email with important items to all concerned parties.  It’s a simple way to make sure everyone is on the same page, and it allows you to document the conversation.

As an engineer, I have to make a lot of cold calls to find out information for clients.  I still get flustered on phone calls, even when I’ve written out what to say, or at least have talking points in mind.  The phone calls never go as planned.  However, I’ve accepted that they never will, and that sometimes I will have to research more information and have a second call to hash out more details.  I don’t enjoy calling someone that I’ve never met or talked to before, but I’ve accepted it’s an important skill to learn.

So how do you encourage your daughter to pick up a phone to call, instead of texting or emailing?  Require her to do just that.  Have her help you plan a party or an activity where she needs to call someone.  Have her help order pizza for dinner one night, or help you schedule an appointment for her.  If she wants to be involved in an activity, and needs to register, have her call and talk to a person.  If she needs to contact a professional for a project for her class, have her call them.  If she’s worried about interrupting them during the day, then have her email an introduction about her needs, but once she has introduced herself and has received a response, have her schedule a time to call this person; or, better yet, have her set up a time to meet this person (with the proper precautions, of course).

With enough practice, she will realize that she has nothing to be worried about when she’s calling someone.  There’s no reason to be anxious that she will embarrass herself or say the wrong thing.  We are all just human, and there is nothing scary about talking to each other.  The earlier she learns this, the easier she will find it is to call a stranger.  In our modern society, being able to carry on an actual conversation, as opposed to a virtual one, will better prepare her for the future.

There is a lot of push for a degree in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).  In September 2017, President Trump issued a Presidential Memorandum for the Secretary of Education which included “a goal of devoting at least $200 million in grant funds per year to the promotion of high‑quality STEM education, including Computer Science in particular.

There are countless organizations devoted to increasing the number of people, women and minorities in particular, in STEM careers.  With an expectation of employment in STEM occupations projected to grow to more than 9 million between 2012 and 2022, it’s no wonder everyone wants to get in the STEM game.

Many people believe that with a degree in a STEM field, the career possibilities are endless.  After all, who wouldn’t want someone who is smart enough to obtain a STEM degree to work for them? This is an extremely common misconception, and it makes me cringe every time I hear a parent say, “I tell my kid to major in engineering, because with a degree in engineering, she can do anything!”

A degree in a STEM field is great if your child is interested in a STEM career, but just isn’t sure what path to take.  It’s a lot easier to switch from a major in engineering to one in marketing than vice versa.  However, if your child has absolutely zero interest in a STEM career, majoring in STEM could be detrimental to her job prospects.  Let’s take a look at how a major in STEM can affect your child’s job prospects throughout her career.

Straight out of college, your child is going to be competing against many other outstanding graduates for jobs.  There are three reasons why a STEM degree may be a negative thing if your daughter is trying to get a job in a non-STEM field:

Personality – A lot of employers base entry-level personnel decisions on personality as much as, if not more so than, credentials. Most employers expect that entry level employee is going to need some training, so the degree isn’t that important for an entry level position. However, people who major in STEM are often viewed as rigid, overly analytical, cold, and introverted.  If an employer is looking for someone who is flexible or can get the job done without overthinking, they may prefer to hire based on personality versus credentials.

• Salary – Many employers pay pretty well for STEM professionals, even for an entry-level position. Many hiring managers fear they won’t be able to match the salary expectations of someone with a STEM degree.  Even if your daughter lists her salary expectations on an application within a reasonable range, there is still a good chance she won’t hear back.
• Boredom – Your daughter majored in STEM, and yet she wants a career that doesn’t require much critical thinking or data analysis? Hiring managers will fear she will get bored quickly, and move on to a career that is more challenging.  They may fear the only reason she’s even applying for this type of position is because she hasn’t been able to find an entry-level position in STEM.  Hiring managers often think that since this non-STEM position will likely lead to boredom, she’ll quickly leave the job once she finds a STEM career, and then they will be attempting to fill the position with a new hire after they just filled the position and invested in training.

I’m not saying any of the above bullet points are true about your daughter, nor should someone be dismissed just because she is “overqualified.” Unfortunately, that’s how the hiring process works a lot of the time, and your daughter (and you) should be prepared for this difficult reality.

If your daughter gets an entry-level position, but 5 years later she decides she’s really unhappy and just not that interested in STEM, she may have a hard time finding a new position without going back for a second degree or certificate of some sort.  She’ll be facing the same issues as entry-level person: the stereotype that her personality won’t fit, her salary expectations will be too high, and she will get bored easily.  However, now instead of just having a STEM degree, she’ll have a STEM degree AND 5 years of experience, which will make prospective employers even more nervous about even giving her an interview.  Additionally, she likely won’t have experience in the type of work that will now be required.  She won’t know certain programs or regulations.

If your daughter becomes a senior level STEM professional with project management experience, she may have an easier time moving into a management position in a different career field.  Project management for STEM professionals isn’t much different than project management for other careers.  However, this assumes your daughter really wants to go into project management.  The business side of things isn’t for everyone, and if your daughter has zero ambition to be a business leader, her hopes to transition to another career will face the same obstacles as an entry level person.

So, your daughter is good at math or science, or is interested in STEM, but she isn’t really sure about a career STEM – what can you do???  In this case, I suggest your daughter do as much research as possible throughout high school and college to determine if a STEM career is right for her.

She should sit down and decide what is most important to her in a career.  Does she want to be in an office, or work with her hands? Does she want to be creative, or follow set standards and requirements?  Is she willing to move for her ideal career, or does she want to stay in the area? If she wants to stay in the area, then she needs to do research on what opportunities are available where she is. She should shadow professionals and intern as much as possible.  In college, she should join college sections of professional organizations so she has more resources to learn about STEM, and possibly double major in a STEM field or get a minor.  These suggestions will likely even help her decide which STEM career is right for her if that’s the way she wants to go.

No matter what, help your daughter be an advocate for herself.  Help her learn to research careers online.  Show her resources she can use to get in touch with professionals in her chosen field of interest.  Above all, encourage your daughter to do more than blindly accept the career advice of her counselors based solely on her grades and academic achievements. STEM careers are not for everyone, and that is okay.

Women are constantly apologizing for things we didn’t do.  We are trained from a young age that we need to apologize anytime someone disagrees with us; anytime we don’t share someone’s feelings; or anytime something bad happens to someone else, even though we had nothing to do with it.  This constant need to apologize for everything also means we tend to take the blame when something goes wrong, even when we weren’t to blame.

As women, we feel that we should have planned better, or explained something in more detail to whomever was picking up from where we left off.  If something goes wrong after we pass off a report, or send someone into the field, we take the blame.  Forget about the fact that we had no control how the next person in line completed his or her task; it is somehow our fault.

In a male-dominated field, constantly taking blame for something you didn’t do can be a career-killer.  It can make you seem as if you don’t know what you are doing, which in turn affects your salary and your career prospects.  Additionally, feeling the need to apologize for everything can make you feel insecure about how good you actually are at your job.  Feeling like everything is your fault, regardless of how much control you had over it, can you make question your choice of career, as you feel like you’re always messing up.  It can make you worry about your prospects at your current employer or make you feel as if your contributions aren’t being recognized fairly.  Maybe you did something really well, and went above and beyond, but small mistakes that weren’t even your fault resulted in you losing credit because you fell on the sword.  Feeling insecure about your job performance can also cause you not to have an opinion or speak up.  You may even end up apologizing for just having an opinion in a meeting!  You feel like you wasted everyone’s time, or you feel like a total idiot for even thinking your opinion mattered.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard a male actually apologize in the work place for making a mistake.  They’ll say, “I thought I had already done that,” or “Thank you for following up,” when you ask them where something is they were working on for you. They’ll always have an excuse, but they rarely say, “I’m sorry.”

This constant need to apologize affects our personal lives as well.  I’ve stayed in relationships for longer than I should have because I was worried about hurting my boyfriend’s feelings.  I’ve been told by others that the reasons behind ending a relationship or a friendship were ridiculous, even though these feelings were very real to me.  Then, I felt the need to apologize to my friends for how I felt, along with my boyfriend for breaking his heart.  While I felt bad for him, I shouldn’t need to apologize for ending something that I was unhappy with.

So how, as a parent, do you break the habit of your daughter apologizing for something she shouldn’t apologize for?  First, teach her to recognize when she truly did something wrong versus when she just feels a certain way.  She should only ever apologize for an action, not a feeling.   If she was blatantly mean to a sibling, friend, parent, etc., yes, she needs to apologize for her actions.  If she lied to you, she needs to apologize.  If she made an honest mistake, sit down with her and figure out how it happened. Teach her how to walk through the entire task, determine what went wrong, and what could be done to fix it.  The most important question she should ask before she apologizes is, “Did I have control over the outcome?” If the answer is, “No,” then she should not apologize.  Even if she did mess up, tell her the most important thing to do is to figure out how not to make the same mistake again.  Maybe there needs to be a better procedure in place.  Maybe she or her entire team needs to work on communication.  Identify the reason an issue occurred, promise to correct it, and move on.