I was introduced to Sam through a mutual friend. I got a taste of her warm and welcoming personality when I first reached out to her about being interviewed for this blog series. She was excited and eager to participate. We met on a mild Saturday morning at a local Starbucks over coffee, and she greeted me with a big smile on her face, brushing her dark hair mixed with strands of purple out of her face. A proud Auburn grad, Sam was happy to share her personal story with me about life, work and play.

Graduating with a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from Auburn University this past spring, Sam is new to the working world, but very happy with where she is and what she’s doing. You see, a lot has happened within the past several months for Sam - she graduated from university, got married, moved to Charleston, and started a new job. As prep for these interviews, I always tell the interviewee to bring props that may be related to her job and/or personality that she can pose with when I take photos. Sam brought her class rings, which I thought was pretty neat. Class rings were never a big thing where I’m from up north, but I’m learning that they are pretty popular down here in the south.

Sam has been an athlete since a really young age and knew that she wanted to continue in college. When I asked her how she got into engineering, she told me that she has always liked math and science and knew that engineering was a possibility.

“I was an athlete, so I was getting recruited by a lot of colleges, and with gymnastics, they recruit you super early. So I was going and visiting colleges by the time I was in eighth grade. I thought maybe I could try engineering or major in physics or mathematics or something similar. But I looked into job opportunities and talked to my parents and figured the engineering route would be more beneficial. So I looked into schools that had engineering departments,” Sam told me.
She didn’t dive into aerospace engineering right away. Rather, she took an approach that consisted of process of elimination and following what felt right to her at the time.
”It was very up in the air. I started in chemical engineering just because I really liked chemistry. When I took my first chemistry course in college, I realized that it was not my thing. So I looked into mechanical. And then I looked at our aerospace department and realized how awesome the aerospace department at Auburn does is, so I decided to go down that route,” she said. Four years later, Sam is a structural analysis engineer at a prominent aerospace company here in the Lowcountry.
Seeing as aerospace engineering has an extremely limited amount of women, I got right into it and asked her if she could share any experiences - good or bad - in regards to life as a female engineer in her industry.

“Well, I just started working in July, so I feel that I don’t have enough experience to elaborate on that question when it comes to working, but I can talk about my experiences as an engineering student. We had a very small number of females in my graduating class, which I always thought was interesting. There aren't that many females that are interested in aerospace. I remember vividly when we went to go visit family for Christmas one year, I told one of my great aunts, who is in her 80’s, that I was going to study aerospace engineering. She said ‘Why would you want to do engineering, that's a man's job!’ It made me realize that she lived in a different world growing up, but now times are changing. The engineering industry is still predominantly male, but I personally think that you can do whatever you want as long as you work hard for it. We also have a family friend who told me that I would never be able to do engineering and athletics together, and he bet that I was going to switch to business or something by my second semester. It made me want to prove him wrong. When I got an offer from the company that I work at now, he apologized to my dad for saying that, but never to me,” she said.
If you studied engineering in college, you know how demanding the work load is in itself. Add athletics into the mix, and it gets even more challenging. So I asked Sam how it was to balance between gymnastics and engineering at the same time. I’m always amazed at how students balance the two together.
"I definitely didn't experience the ‘normal’ college life. I was training 20 hours a week and then on top of that, I had mandatory study hours. Everything combined takes up so much time, but it was really beneficial for me because I learned time management and nailing down a schedule, especially with classes changing every semester and going from pre-season to season to off-season. I was constantly adjusting. Basically I would wake up at 6:00 AM, go to rehab, go to class, get a practice in, do homework, go to bed, and then wake up and do it all over again. I feel like I didn't sleep a lot!” she laughed. “And luckily by the time my senior year rolled around, I had the attitude that if I had made it that far, moving forward and finishing wouldn’t be so bad.”

“Was there ever a time where you had doubts and wanted to change your major?” I curiously asked her.

She replied with a smile: “Not really, because if I quit engineering, I didn’t know what else I would do.”

Sam is one of the youngest women I have interviewed so far, and it hasn’t been that long since she was graduating from high school, looking into colleges, and picking out a major. Four years of school can really change a person though, which brought me to my next question: was there anything that Sam would say to her 18-year old self if she could go back in time and do things differently?

“Um, I kind of wish I had been a little more social at the beginning of college. I was a super shy, quiet person when I started, but it’s funny now because I am the complete opposite and can’t keep my mouth shut! But I wish that I hadn't been as shy at the beginning and was more willing to step out of my comfort zone and meet more people. I do think college does something to people, though. You leave home and you live somewhere by yourself for four years, so you have to learn a lot of new things. I was super lucky to come in and already have a friend group established through athletics,” Sam said.

The second half of our interview naturally steered toward the reason why I am doing this blog series. If you’ve been following along since April, you know what question comes next and the reason why I ask it: I know that for me, being an engineer has become part of my identity. The surprised, yet impressed reaction that I get from people when I tell them that I am an engineer really makes me feel good. Have you experienced this and if so, what are your thoughts? Do you feel you are labelled strictly by your occupation and not by who you are outside of that? Sam’s answer surprised me.

“So I've definitely gone through trying to figure out who I am. I had an injury a while back. I don't know if you heard about it, but I was the gymnast that broke her legs back in April.”

I hadn’t heard about it.

“It was the beginning of April, and it was a fluke accident, but in the worst way. I was doing something that I had done like a million times and just like landed wrong. I ended up dislocating my legs. And it was being televised and broadcast live. I was on the floor for like 10-15 minutes with the medical staff and coaches all around me. It was not a great experience. And somehow, throughout that weekend it ended up picking up wind and people were posting all about it and the video went all over YouTube. There was an article that come out like literally that night that was titled: ‘Gymnast Breaks Both Legs.’ It was a lot to deal with,” she said.

Honestly, at that point in the conversation, I would have never guessed something like that had happened. When you’re with Sam, she exudes such a positive and down-to-earth energy. I was shocked to hear about her injury, because I would have never in a million years been able to tell what she had been through just 6 months beforehand.

“I had to get off of social media for a couple of weeks. The fact that it had gone viral, you know the media is great in some ways, but it's also really terrible in other ways. I went through a small phase within that time where I was like, well, now I'm just the girl that got injured. What do I do now? But I mean, it was really cool getting to see the positivity from social media. I remember what specifically stood out to me was during one point when I was feeling super low, someone had reached out to me and told me that they had followed me since starting at Auburn, and said that I’ve done so much that this shouldn't bring me down, which I thought was super cool. It was something that really helped me. Because at that time I was planning a wedding, I was finishing up my senior design project, I was president of our student advisory committee. I had a lot of things going on,” she explained to me.

“I started to think about what I had done and what I wanted to be known for, and so I said to myself, ‘You know, I'm not the girl that got injured. It's just a speed bump in the road. There are more things that define me than my injury.’ Thinking about my identity has been a big thing for me. I take pride in what I do, and I'm very happy to be an engineer now. Being a gymnast was definitely a phase of my life, and people think it ended on a poor note, but I don't think it did because I thought a lot of positive things came out of that, and now I'm just on a new phase of life where I am an engineer now,” she smiled.

Wow! Sam is certainly a 23-year old who is wise beyond her years. What a joy to be around, and how amazing it is to see someone look at an obstacle in her life as something positive. I asked her to tell me a little more about what being an engineer means to her and why she’s happy to be where she currently is.

“When I meet people and they ask me what I do and I say that I'm an engineer, they think it’s really cool. It's really neat getting to meet people that are excited to hear what you do. And so I think right now, engineering really makes me happy. Being able to go home and not worry about school and spend time with my husband and our dog and getting to relax a little bit just makes me really happy!” she said.

Six months later, Sam is doing very well, but still goes to rehab. She was actually supposed to move to Seattle for work, but when she got injured, those plans went out the window. However, it all worked out for the better because her company let her work here in Charleston, which allowed her to be with her husband, who is in the Navy and is stationed here.

“I’m actually really happy that you didn’t know about my injury. I didn’t want this interview to be solely focused on it. There's so many different parts to people, but sometimes one portion gets elevated. People are made up of so many different experiences, and it can be hard to look past the surface,” she said.

And this is why I do these interviews and the entire reason for this blog series. We are all multi-dimensional human beings. We are so much more than just one side of us - whether it be our jobs, our relationship status, or what we think makes us successful. Let’s remember to not neglect those parts of ourselves.

I asked Sam if she would recommend engineering to a young girl who is still in school.

“Yeah, I mean, I feel like engineering just gives you a lot of different opportunities and especially with it being something that people are pushing women towards so that it's more diverse. I do think the saddest thing is seeing people get pushed into certain boxes though, and not wanting to be themselves. Yes, if you really like math and science, engineering is a great career path to work towards. I think it's great that we're encouraging more girls to go into engineering, but if they don't want to do engineering, you can't make them do it. Maybe they want to do art, maybe they enjoy writing. I feel like that's something that people kind of forget sometimes when they focus on improving STEM diversity,” Sam said. She does make a good point. Diversity is important, but we also have to remember to let people gravitate towards what they want to do.

So, what advice would she give a young woman going into engineering?

“I would say that it’s super challenging. But if it's something that you really like, you are going to have to push through that. In the end, the most rewarding thing is being able to get through something that's super challenging and see what's on the other side. For sure, I'd go back and do it all over again if I knew I'd be able to have the opportunities that I have now and get to interact with the people that I do on a daily basis. I think it's definitely worth it, and sometimes it's really hard when you're there in the moment and you just want to go to bed,” she laughed. If you’re an engineer, you know what she means!

“Is there anything you want people to know about females in the engineering industry?” I asked her.

“I feel like the biggest thing for female engineers is proving people wrong. I do think there are people who feel like they need to work harder, and I still think that women in engineering have to do that. In my experience, I’ve wanted to prove people who doubted me wrong,” Sam said. “But I’m not knocking on male engineers. I’m sure they’ve had their challenges. Everyone has a different background and a different path.”

Engineering aside, I asked Sam what gives her joy and what her passions are outside of work. She told me that she loves spending time with her husband and dogs. She also likes to read. Most importantly, she loves baking.

“I would bake for my teammates all the time. I’ve finally nailed a really good sugar cookie recipe that is the bomb,” she smiled.

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