Things I have learned: Messing Up = Growth

Over the course of my internship, I gained access to a lot of information. A lot of the information was from my internship. It was a lot of tangible facts.. but it also was an experience that was more personal than that.

My internship was particularly inspiring because it showed me the value of personal relationships in the workplace. The team that I was with taught me that working hard doesn't have to be emotionally and physically draining.... well there were a lot of days I spent up on my feet... but it all goes to providing the best product for the customer and for making the best working environment for employees.

I learned about work ethic outside of the classroom. Sure, BASIS taught me how to manage my time well, how to work in a team with my peers, and how to sit down and get some grit when things got hard. However, I never really had the opportunity to learn about growth in the workplace. While at MJS Designs, I learned that not only was it completely alright if you messed up... but that it was actually encouraged. Making a mistake gives you the opportunity to learn versus robotically solving a problem without taking anything in.

As I talked about with the LED ring, there was an ENTIRE week where I wasn't even editing the right part of the code. Rather than programming each LED, I was messing with the backbone of the code and the result was a wide variety of messed up results. The point is, I spent an entire week of my project messing up but instead of getting upset with me, my mentor laughed it off and then guided me in the right direction.

I have come to find that for me personally, the biggest struggle I will face as a future engineer is having people tell me that I can't do something. I think that an environment geared towards discouraging girls from engineering is determinantal to society. Females, in general, are more detail oriented and focus on aesthetics so of course, the field needs this manner of problem-solving.

In my opinion, the key to a female's success in engineering is messing up. In equation form..

MESSING UP = GROWTH

Through making mistakes, females will be able to develop their skills and it will give them the confidence to attempt problems even when they aren't certain on how to finish them. Education within engineering should focus on developing an atmosphere where females are encouraged to be bold... After all, those who are bold enough to take risks are the ones who change the world.