United Kingdom - Flag United Kingdom

Incoterms:DDP
All prices include duty and customs fees on select shipping methods.

Please confirm your currency selection:

British Pounds
Free shipping on most orders over £33 (GBP)

Euros
Free shipping on most orders over 50 € (EUR)

US Dollars
Free shipping on most orders over $60 (USD)

Bench Talk for Design Engineers

Bench Talk

rss

Bench Talk for Design Engineers | The Official Blog of Mouser Electronics


Dress Like an Engineer
On June 6, 2016 in All by Caroline Storm Westenhover
Caroline Storm Westenhover

 

"And so you see, with these modifications, I was able to increase the cooling efficiency of this unit by 20%"

 

I went to the IEEE Pulsed Power Conference & Symposium on Fusion Engineering last summer. It was so interesting, but mostly over my head, and while there I was invited to speak on an informal panel. It was about what it is like to be a woman in Engineering. This was the first time I had ever been on a panel, and some of the organizers at the conference asked me what I was going to wear. To which I responded by looking down at my lab polo and khakis and saying, “This?” They informed me that I would probably want to wear something nicer. When I showed up to the panel wearing a nice top and skirt, and saw that all the other women were nicely dressed, I was very grateful for their advice. I had just figured showing up to a “Women in Engineering” panel dressed like I do for work would be fine.

 

One of the appeals of engineering for me is how relaxed everyone generally is about clothing. I don’t just mean wearing jeans to work. I mean no hidden land mines in the fashion department. Making small mistakes in your wardrobe is looked over. Small mistakes in your calculations? That is a problem. Shirt doesn’t match your skin tone? Whatever. As long as you don’t look like a slob, you are fine. The few times there happens to be a specific dress code they are usually very clear about it. Doing a job interview? Black jacket, white shirt, and black pants. Heck, when we went to a conference my company gave us all specific polos to wear. Not that I don’t enjoy dressing up, it makes me happy when I find a dress that makes me feel gorgeous. I just don’t want to be judged by my inability to follow obfuscated fashion rules. But I guess that is how my friends feel when I tell them, “A computer will always do exactly what you tell it to do.” (This, I am just now realizing, my dad did not make up on his own, something I had assumed for my entire childhood). Perhaps next time I am having a conversation with someone and they don’t know what I consider to be a basic scientific fact, I should just remind myself that to them, perhaps the term “potential energy” makes as much sense to them as the term dress casual does to me.



« Back


My name is Caroline Storm Westenhover. I am a Senior Electrical Engineering student at the University of Texas at Arlington. I am the third of seven children. I enjoy collecting ideas and theories and most enjoy when they come together to present a bigger picture as a whole. Perhaps that is why I like physics and engineering.  My biggest dream is to become an astronaut.


Related Posts

  • Math: the Language of Engineers, Scientists, and Artists Alike

    Neil Armstrong’s favorite quote was "Science is about what is, engineering is about what can be.” STEM, and now STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics) promote these areas for growth. Some might consider the “Art” in STEAM to be out of place, but I disagree. Engineers need cross-pollination, and have you seen some of the incredible art using open source technology?

  • Engineer's Week 2014 and the Next Generation of Engineers

    It’s Engineer’s Week, and outside of celebrating by reading Col. Chris Hadfield’s new book, “An Astronaut’s Guide To Life On Earth”, I’m also doing some volunteer work, representing Mouser Electronics at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History. We have both a display, showing kids various functioning LEDs, chips, speakers and a nifty little robot built from a Parallax kit, and a hands-on table showing young kids how to build their own homopolar motor. This fascination with how things work and being able to build it yourself is a common trait I’ve seen in engineers of all ages.

  • Embracing the Fail Whale: Learning from Engineering Failures

    Throughout human history failure has been a bittersweet fact of life, and engineering is not exempt from this truth. Despite our best efforts (and sometimes, because of the lack thereof), engineering failures occur. The aforementioned examples are just some of the most highly publicized engineering disasters of the last 75 years. Sometimes, as we push the envelope in pursuit of success, things go horribly wrong. However, engineers should never use the reasons of those failures as an excuse. Instead, a failure should be viewed as a call to action, which brings with it the necessity to keep pursuing the root cause(s) of the failure. By doing this, we expand our knowledge and can reduce the likelihood of another disaster occurring in our future endeavors.

  • Engineering Snobs

    I try not to be a snob. Early on in my engineering career, I was taken down a peg or two after graduation. I had this shiny new degree I was ready to try out, but engineering is a lot more than academic knowledge. After a few months of working, I realized that there was a large amount that I did not know. All the subjects I took were preparing me to be an engineer. But you cannot discount the learning associated with doing.

  • Engineering Horror Stories

    I recently commented to a colleague that engineers either learn by “letting the smoke out” of something (breaking it) or they can learn vicariously through another’s mistakes, if the mistake is catastrophic enough. I don’t have a lot of these, but I have noticed that engineering horror stories are effective training tools and often funny.

  • Securing IoT Products from Unique Threats

    IoT products are vulnerable to several attack vectors and are frequently hacked for the lack of adequate security measures. This blog discusses the unique challenges of securing IoT and presents a methodical 4-tier system design approach to predictably secure IoT products.
11198 Views
Tagged With: Women in Engineering

Search

Categories

Featured Authors

All Authors

Show More Show More
View Blogs by Date

Archives