STEM Questions and Concerns

Finding the right career for you in the very broad area of STEM is not an easy task. Nowadays, the more technology is developed, the most difficult for us is to take the right decision on what to be specialized in. I believe this very important choice should be based on what you like doing and not based on the economical aspect of it. Remember that this is what you want to do for the rest of your life and you better enjoy it since the beginning.

However let me tell you a bit about myself and probably with my personal experience you'll understand that doing what you like is always the best choice.

I studied Electronics and Communications Engineering. At first, I didn't have any idea if this was going to work for me since I just wanted to be an Engineer because my father is one. Nonetheless, I made a choice based on the study program and the broad fields it could be useful for. Years went by and as I believed, I ended loving my career not because of all the knowledge I obtained, I loved it because it helped learning structure my ideas towards solving problems. This solving problems IQ is what Engineers learn in their careers and this is what is exciting. Later on I started in the Telecommunications world providing troubleshooting (solving problems). I felt great because finally I was doing something I studied for. However, later on, my career had a 180° turn, and I accepted a challenge dealing not only with technological problems, now I started dealing with financial problems, and guess what!? I loved it! I could have turned down this opportunity but this gave me the chance to continue adding a capability to solve other types of problems.

A few years ago I studied a MBA and I combined both the technological and the business and finance education. I work now for an IT company doing finance to price services. So I combine my technical knowledge with my finance experience and I work from home. So that I love having a great balance between Life and Work.

As you read from my personal experience, the choice I made with the type of engineering was important, but what is more important is that I chose a career that I thought I would enjoy very much based on the program. An advice from me will be focusing on the careers study program, compare each other and auto-assess what would be the one you will enjoy the most doing. Then the rest, is making the choices that will give my a broader skill set towards solving problems.

Hopefully this helps you finding the correct type of Engineering for you.

Hi Elissa!

Congratulations on being interested in such an important and challenging field.

Here is a site that may help:
http://engineering.mit.edu/ask/so-many-engineering-fields-choose-how-do-i-pick-right-one

Here is another good site that is for girls like you considering engineering:
http://www.engineergirl.org/

Best of luck!