what it's really like to be a female engineer

Hi Jaren,

I can speak to how to become an engineer. As for being a female engineer, you will become good friends with a lot of guys.

In high school, I took a lot of AP classes that I knew are required for any engineering degree, e.g., AP physics BC, AP Calculus C, and AP Chemistry.  Through taking AP Chem, I realized that I did not like chemistry so Chemical Engineering and Material Science was out of the question. I also was in a FIRST Robotics Team in high school so that got me interested in mechanical engineering and electrical engineering. 

I said in my college application that I wanted to be a mechE but halfway through my freshman year, I switched to Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) because I took the intro to ECE and intro to mechE classes and decided I liked ECE better. Taking these AP classes in high school really freed up my freshman year to take these intro to engineering classes that were needed to help me find my passion. 

It was hard for me to know what type of engineer I wanted to be in college if I hadn't taken the AP classes and intro engineering classes early on.  Thus it's very important that you start getting experiences in engineering early on to zero in on what engineering you are truly interest in. All engineering requires problem solving, but it is what type of problems you are solving and how you solving them that differ. Find your passion first, because becoming an engineer requires a tremendous amount of focus and dedication to master the skills, it would be hard to do it without the passion.

-Xiaoyun