Women in STEMP

Tips, etc.

What I Wish That I'd Known (Many Voices)

Document Created by Dr. Janice Walker

COURAGE (or CONFIDENCE) to be you!

That your dream will carry you wherever you want to go.
There are many different ways women seek to work and/or raise a family. Choose what you believe is right for you (not what you think others think you should do) and live that to the fullest.
Forgive yourself for not being perfect. "Perfection" is a trap.
Don't be afraid to follow your interests, even if there aren't a lot of women along for the ride with you.
It is ok to be different. Do not let others make you feel like you have to be a certain way to be in STEM.
I wish I had been more confident of my own worth and had not just taken what had been offered me in terms of poor treatment or low salary.
You have to make your own path. There is no one exactly like you. You are different and that is what makes you remarkable. You might end up being the first (or only) woman who studies a particular topic, attends a particular meeting, serves on a particular committee, and takes a particular course. Someone has to cut the path through the weeds-you might get banged up and scratched a bit, but don't be afraid to be the first.
Follow your gut/instinct/intuition/passion/whatever you want to call it. You have something unusual and important to offer but it will take courage and risk-taking to pursue it. It will also yield unforeseen and unpredictable rewards both personally and professionally.
That it is alright to understand and be thinking about problems differently than others - people think and process differently and that's okay.
Fear is perhaps the greatest enemy of success. "Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear." This knowledge wouldn't have eradicated my fears; it would have helped me deal with more them realistically rather than hiding from or ignoring them.

PERSISTENCE

Persistence is key. I am as capable as my male counterparts, if not more capable.
If nobody listens to your idea, just do it anyway. Many people are "I dea" but not "I do." (all talk and no action). Some people just want to shoot down all your ideas. Instead, if you believe your idea is worthy, you should take action and pursue it.
That Passion, Curiosity, and Perseverance are as important as Intelligence That it is ok to struggle, to make mistakes, but that it is important to understand these to move forward
There is a HUGE need for women in STEM fields and that if you want it bad enough, you can make it!
You will not be the best at everything.
If you run into a problem at work because you are "different" (age, race, physical traits, etc.), think about the situation carefully. You can listen to other people's suggestions but be cautious about following them without thinking. Although people try to be helpful, most of the time no one is standing exactly in the same shoes as yours. What works well for them may not work at all for you. Therefore, you should listen and gather different suggestions, then digest them to formulate your own problem solving strategies
This may sound naïve but when I chose to become a physics major I didn't know that it was underrepresented with women. I went to a college that was historically all female and switched in the 70s. When I went there it was a 4 female to 1 male ratio but in physics we had equal numbers. So I think I was a junior when I realized that the real world had a lot less female physicists vs. the college world. I think that would have been good to know at the time, although as a young person I had a lot more of an 'I can do it no matter what the odds are' attitude then I do today.
That grades reflect your knowledge at a particular point in time and they do not reflect what you are capable of, what your potential is.
That research takes time to become a part of you. Sometimes decades.
You do not have to be perfect. i.e. Strive for excellence in your work, but realize that perfection is not a requirement. In your research, setbacks will inevitably occur and mistakes may happen. Nevertheless, the key is to learn from mistakes, and press forward even as you encounter setbacks. Persistence and hard work payoff in the end.

ADVERSITY

Men will underestimate me all along the way.
Be aware of evaluations, you get judged harsher than your male colleagues.
I think the #1 thing I wish I knew when I was younger is that a lot of confidence my male peers exert is actually not representative of what they know, only what they think they know, which are oftentimes very different. In other words, confidence doesn't equal competence, but I don't know that when I was younger.
That everyone is "faking it" to some degree. I almost dropped out of grad school my first year as I believed I was not as smart/strong as the other grad students. But it turns out I was.
The imposter syndrome is real. The people you think are super confident are often incredibly self-critical, just like you.
Worry less. Life is hard no matter what. Each challenge is an opportunity for growth.
My main response is that, for a long time, I thought the gender imbalance in my field didn't really affect me, and therefore wouldn't be a problem for me in the future. I'm not sure there's anything anyone could have told me at the time to shake this naivete, since it's not like I hadn't heard plenty of arguments about it (I have a mother in the field of Women's Studies, after all). But I was convinced that my work was good enough that it would speak for itself.
Peers/bosses may evaluate you differently from other co-workers due to implicit bias. Just be prepared to cope with it. The best way to cope with it is actually not to think too much about it and do your best every time.
Ignore the crap or stand up against it? (Might be both.) In my Women and Math class we recently watched 2 videos, one on Grace Murray Hopper and one on Katherine Johnson. In the videos, both women were interviewed and made a statement that they didn't really think they experienced "gender bias" in Hopper's case or "racism" in Johnson's case. Both of these women had to have experienced it but either chose to ignore it, assumed it was just the way things were, or just didn't recognize it. I found it something to think about though.

NETWORKING/SUPPORT GROUP

No one succeeds alone. Get a support group and ask for help when you need it.
I wish I had done a better job of networking and maintaining connections with other researchers in my field.
That having a mentor or two is worth their weight in gold. Make sure that you trust those people and that they are actually there to help.
It's important to have a support network of friends (if your family isn't near) who will help you out when there's a need.
Talk to other women about their experiences, challenges, lessons learned. You don't have to make the same mistakes.
Find female or male friends who do not make you feel like an imposter in your field.
There is still a lot of subtle but real bias in the world against women and racial/ethnic groups. The assistance and support of others matter for your personal and professional well-being.
I wish I had known more about the subtle ways that sexism rears its head-that you are simultaneously punished and rewarded by assertiveness. I've read a lot about this in the past few years and while I thought I had never experienced sexism as a younger woman in science because it hadn't been overt. But I see evidence of it more now, especially as I rise higher in my career. I see this not just for me, but others as well. Mentorship is important.
I wish that I had known that women in STEM share a lot of common feelings and experiences, mostly unspoken. I should have reached out more to them.
I wish that I'd know that there is still a lot of bias in great. the world that does not serve women well. So you should out with people you admire to learn from them. Be mentored by people who think you're
Consider well the counsel of 'the elders". Wisely choose mentors and advisors who have your best interest at heart. Do not hastily discount the advice they may share. Often, their experience and the insight they share can be of benefit to you. On the flip side, stay away from the naysayers who may deter you from your goals. Succeeding in STEM can be mentally taxing; you need positive supporters in order to counter the effect of negative experiences you may have.

EXPLORE

Early on I wish I would have known about other fields, other than teaching, a math degree could lead to. Advice: Explore opportunities for internships, talk with mentors (especially other women - I don't remember any women role models in my undergraduate time) and others in math related fields.
I wish I had put more thought into choosing my area of research. Physiology, being a biomedical science, is expensive and requires a lot of space, equipment, and support personnel to publish papers. I knew throughout my doctoral/postdoctoral appointments that I ultimately wanted to teach, and I might have been able to figure out a project that would have been better suited to the constraints of being at a smaller, non-RO1 institution.
Travel! Science provides many opportunities to take courses, to go to meetings, to conduct field research. Every year that you grow up you accumulate more responsibilities, so travel while you still can!
Try as many things as you can. Take classes that interest you. Follow job opportunities that might be a little different. Participate in clubs you might not think you'd like. I worked at GE for a few summers doing various jobs including collections, was an actuary intern, was part of the accounting club, started college as a Finance Major, worked as an IT consultant, and now as a professor. Don't limit yourself too early on. The perfect fit might not be what your originally expected.
I should have always stepped back to ask myself if I were following my passion or heart. It is easy to do things that someone else thinks are right for you. In this case, you may have questions, doubts, or regrets later about the paths you have chosen. Unfortunately, you can't turn back the clock at that time, so do what you feel called to do.
Make sure you don't focus too much on the STEM classes at the expense of other classes. What I mean by this is that although I did fine in humanities, it was not my strong suit and definitely evident in my verbal SAT score. Seek out those opportunities to be a well-rounded individual. For example, I took a class in high school called etymology and found that very helpful learning about word origins.

OTHER COMMENTS

The most important realization for me has been that the absence of blatant discrimination is not the same a real equality. The problem today is almost never someone who explicitly believes that women can't do philosophy. Instead, it is a matter of colleagues who are simply more comfortable with other male colleagues, and therefore are more likely to turn to them to help with new and interesting projects. Or colleagues who are all too willing to allow someone else to do the service work necessary to keep the university functioning -- and who don't see a problem when such work falls disproportionately on women. I wish I'd known that once you have an academic job, you will love it beyond all reason. 20 years into my career, I still go to work happy.
I wish I'd known that once you have an academic job, you will love it beyond all reason. 20 years into my career, I still go to work happy.
Find a supporting husband and/or get a cleaning service. Divorce your husband, if he is an energy drain.
It's okay to have kids. You make it work. Judge potential partners based on how much they're going to help you with this-not just how much they'll help out with baby and housework but also how much tradeoff they will accept in their/your careers

Authors: About 14 women all in STEMP fields + two other women professionals