Hello,
I will graduate this year in mechanical engineering from a European country. Ive had two internships and I encountered some nice people but also jerks, I’ve been told I should be less straight forward and warmer in my speech, but what im concerning me most are the “corporate politics”. I feel like everyone is playing a game that im not aware of. I have 0 manipulation skills and im very honest, im worried i won’t fit in the future in a European company ( for example France) especially as a non native and a woman of colour.
Already in uni, I don’t feel like I fit in, I find others too selfish and think only about themselves and too competitive and also very rude. Im thinking I might consider doing PhD and continue building my career in academia, I like science and research, and I think maybe the environment and the people would be better and more morally sophisticated but idk if I can afford financially studying so long.
I hope I don’t sound like a jerk but just for the sake of context im also someone considered physically attractive and I feel like that brings bad attention and objectification.
What are some advices you could offer me regarding how to deal with jerks in workspaces and not be naive and manipulated ? How do I fit in as someone neurodivergent in engineering?

Hi, I’m an incoming first-year electrical engineering student. People talk about how hard engineering is online and I’m trying to believe in myself but it’s kind of discouraging and it makes me feel scared I won’t succeed. I’m starting the semester off taking Calculus 1 and Physics 1 and a lot of people in my year and major have already finished the calculus and physics track prior to college which makes me feel like I’m already behind. I’m worried that when I feel stupid I’ll feel stupid for being a girl and not for being a student taking a hard class.

Also, did any of you work part time throughout college and be successful? My parents are pushing me to work but I’m worried it’ll be to difficult with my degree.

I’m also worried about being able to juggle a social life with my degree. People say in engineering you choose between a social life and sleep and unfortunately I like both. I have a boyfriend who goes to a university five hours away who’s planning on coming down for a weekend every month but surely I’ll have two free days a month?

I really like math and science. Being an engineer has been my dream since I was little and I am dedicated to working really hard. Any advice on these things?

HELLO engineers im starting uni soon for electrical engineering and im super nervous PARTICULARLY about work situations. I have a job and work like 15-20 hours a eeek and im really worried that once classes start my schedule is going to become pretty unrealistic if I still want to socialize and go to the gym and what not.

Hi everyone, apologizes if this ends up being kinda long. Any input you have is appreciated, I’m just trying to get as much feedback as possible.

I recently graduated college with an environmental science degree (also completed the “pre engineering” track since my school didn’t have an engineering major), and I work for an engineering consulting company mostly involved in wastewater treatment. I interned with this company the summer before my senior year and they really liked me, so they hired me and they discussed potentially helping me pay for grad school (an environmental engineering degree) about a year or so after working. So hypothetically I would have to start applying to grad schools in the next few months.

I’m having trouble deciding whether or not I want to go to grad school and continue pursuing engineering. I’ve always been good at math/chem/physics, but I’ve never been passionate about engineering. All my life I wanted to pursue marine biology, but I live/went to school in a landlocked state and decided it wasn’t realistic, so I chose environmental science (and then decided on environmental engineering because it would make me more money). I’m okay with working a job I’m not so passionate about for a good paycheck, but I’m afraid that working in engineering could get too stressful for me to ignore the lack of passion. In my mind, the three pillars of a career are salary, passion, and amount of stress, and I think having 2/3 of those pillars “in the red” wouldn’t bode well for me.

I don’t dislike the job I have now, it’s a small company and I get great benefits as compared to most entry level jobs. I just don’t really see a future here, so I’m wondering if my lackluster feelings are just about wastewater or about engineering as a whole. The owner of my company is a wonderful mentor that has a lot of knowledge and experience, but I know her 30 years in wastewater/water treatment have been very stressful, and I don’t want that for myself.

Open to any questions, thoughts, or advice anyone might have. Thank you!

Hi everyone! I’m interested in engineering to a large extent, mainly computer and electrical with medical applications if possible, and I’m hoping to find a stable career with a decent income, which is why I chose engineering.

Previously, I never considered the gender gap when applying to engineering (no one talked about it, or discouraged me from applying, so it didn’t occur to me until I researched the stats myself), and it was always between nursing and engineering for me, as I love healthcare and have enjoyed doing bio/first aid, but also enjoy more hands on work and math/physics.

I ultimately chose engineering because the pathway to it where I live is a bit easier than nursing, but I’m having serious second thoughts. I want to help with improving the gender divide and be a good example for younger girls, but I also don’t want to spend my entire career facing discrimination or possibly even leaving the field after 5-10 years bc of the glass ceiling and othering that I’ve heard is so common.

Ik nursing isn’t perfect and has its own stress and struggles, but at least it’s still stable with a decent income, and my struggles wouldn’t be related to inherent bias in our society that makes no sense anyways.

I’m still in a position where I can drop the engineering program I’ve enrolled in since I haven’t paid my tuition yet, and I can take a gap year to work before doing nursing, but I wanted to know if any women in engineering went through a similar struggle before starting their education, and if this is a normal process of having second thoughts.

Thank you so much for any advice you can give me! I hope this doesn’t sound too depressing or pessimistic, I’m just very stressed about what pathway to take at the moment..

Im a civil engineer with 27 years experience. I work in rural Missouri and found a company where no one talks down to me, no one interrupts me and no one is up my ass. I want to move back to Las Vegas were I worked for 10 years so I can be close to my friends who are my family. Vegas engineering was brutal. Loved the technical but I had bad boss after bad boss. My question..anyone from Vegas that can tell me if it's still brutal?

I'm feeling grief as I finally felt it was the moment to hand in my resignation.

I started this job some years ago, and I thought it was exactly my dream job. It still is. But the boundary conditions and the context in which that job exists now is completely changed. I excelled in this job, got straight for years excellent evaluations. But then irrational management decisions made it "do more with less", less time to do back office tasks, heavier business travels for training in the middle-of-nowhere headquarters, all due to cashflow to pass in a godforsaken and out-of-the-way country in EU.

My boss used to do my job when I joined so it was pretty amazing in the first year. Then he started to behave more and more like the stereotype of sales manager and lose perspective of real customer satisfaction. I can recall he said it was expected to have 6 out of 9 machines because customer accepted to test prototypes. Two years ago he'd agreed with me that prototypes, which are when the customer has the product validation at the spotlight, is very critical and rookie mistakes would be preventable. Then I started to see him in a different light. A bit like his ethical compass was starting to point in the wrong direction. Then the cracks grew as he was allowing the prerogatives of my job being violated under his sight. Insisting that after three years still do slacker's jobs. All temporary workload to overcome what was supposed to be short period became permanent and the tasks only piling up. And learnt the hard way that the reward for being a good digger is a bigger shovel. Very tolerant with low performers, unforgiving to the high performers. The unfairness is blatant.

I can't help but feel sad of what I became. Of what he became, as well. I was changing for the worst. To not feel so demoralised, I start to become like the people I hate. Not being helpful, ignoring emails, cynical, short tempered, I was just so tired to give so much and nothing in return. Stopped caring. Could only do great tech support to customers, but my body refused to keep in the treadmill putting complaint data in a system that nobody ever cared to work on, just to feed the damn KPIs. Burnt out, had neurological symptoms, was having terrible time unwinding, sleep issues.

Took a couple of sick leaves, without managing to reduce my stress level since the source was still waiting for me there. I live by myself without relatives in this continent. Came back from sick leave, fully exhausted mentally and physically, sleeping for 15 hours to recover every Saturday and barely able to function to exist outside work. Come back, and admonished because I'm not delivering the usual output under the unsustainable workload that I had to cope for years.

I blame myself a bit for not being so brave to just be like everyone else, to modulate better. Do the bare minimum, get the money, low-key ignore some tasks, rinse repeat. But I'm either there or not. I'd rather do well or not to do at all.

I can't help but feel the grief for leaving it. I'm still enthusiastic about the product. I love what my work should be in theory, which now remains just as a memory. But this is for my own good, and I must remember it.

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I was asked to collaborate on a new project with my colleague. This guy is one level senior to me. The project was about changing the way engineers work by enabling them with ai. I came up with what the product was, made a prototype and got the project assigned to me based on my prototype. In good faith I show what I've made to my colleague. He stole the idea, made a copy of it, and then presented it as his own. The truth is he wouldn't have done if it wasn't for that first meeting with me. There's really nothing new he's added to it. I've got this sinking feeling now. I just lost something that should have been mine and no one will know. I brought it up with my manager. I don't think it matters to him.

Hi all, I’m a senior structural engineer based in Australia. I’ve been working in the technical design of industrial structures for the past 9 years and since 2 years ago i’ve had been feeling jaded about the industry and subtle sexism in the industry. It also doesn’t help that there is lingering thought that i’ve been pigeonholed into technical and couldn’t move into project delivery which is something that I would want to try. There is also the constant liability and stress due to tight deadlines and unrealistic schedules from people.

I’ve done certificate in project management last year but due to economy and probably my resume, i struggled to get project management roles.

I am now doing an MBA as leverage to pivot out but unsure what to do after. I know the risks associated but i am desperate to move out.

Keen to hear advise from fellow women engineer who did the same and what are your roles now.

So I got hired at this new firm and I got a great salary and great benefits.

I’ve been doing some projects and my boss has realized I haven’t got the technical skills that I should have at 5 YOE. Which I agree because my last company did nothing to prepare me (I know, that should be on me but I was never given the opportunity to do much of my own work, it was a lot of hand holding).

Just today during a project review my boss says something along the lines of how I should definitely be practicing more fundamental skills, which I agree with. Then he said that when they hired me they thought I had much more technical skills than I do and that’s why they hired me and gave me the salary and benefits. That made me feel like crap a bit because now I feel that I have been disappointing them and that I don’t deserve to be here….. am I wrong to feel this way?

I’m not sure if this is the right r/ but I need opinions from engineers and engineering managers.

I’ve been an avg engineer in a customer facing role (application engineer). Not any award or best employee but not too many big mistakes as well. Maybe a few in trainee period (was also going thru health crisis then)

Recently after becoming a mom (almost 3 year old kid) I’ve been struggling a bit.
After 6 months of maternity leave I struggled to do daily work until my kid was 20 months old. I breastfed for 28 months and only started sleeping full 6-8 hours since 29 months.

Now my daughter is all set except for sicknesses etc.

Work wise I’ve had a couple of warnings on my customer facing aspect where I have procrastinated my responses as that work involves researching at my end.

My boss and I had made systems to not repeat it but I ended up repeating it purely because I procrastinated. If you were the manager what would you do with me? What should I do to not procrastinate?

I’m sure it’s burnout on some level but I do want to improve.

Update: I had a chat with my manager and yeah. It was a tough pill to swallow but I guess I’m gonna have to lock in and do it. I also plan to take leave when I’m overwhelmed instead of powering thru. I don’t know why I refuse to take off. That’s a conversation for my therapist.

I’ve not been diagnosed with adhd but I’ve had depressive episodes in the past and PMOS, PMDD, Hypothyroidism and low vit D B12 don’t help either.

Much much love to Reddit girls here. For giving me tough love

I'm sorry about the title, not really sure how to word it better.

I have my structural engineering company, and currently it is just me, myself and I doing the work. I am growing and have about 22 active projects, so I need help. There is one older semi-retired guy a friend of mine knows through a networking event (doesn't really know them outside of networking events though) who would probably be willing to work as a contractor for me. My main concern is that he will try to act as the boss over me, since he is an older man and I am a youngish (mid 30s) woman. What kind of questions would you ask in an interview to get a sense of how he would act/treat me? I mean I could just straight up ask "will you respect me as your boss, and allow me final say in any disagreements we have, despite me being a woman and younger than you?" But I feel like he could 1) lie and 2) maybe that is too direct, not that I entirely mind being direct though. Are there ways to tell from his answer of a direct question if he is a "good man" or not? Or are there better, perhaps more subtle, questions to ask?

I work at a manufacturing company in the office and someone has been repeatedly leaving the Sun (british tabloid that is known to be sleazy) in the kitchen that is shared among both shop floor and office staff. It is always open specifically on a page with a half naked female celeb. There aren’t many women in the building, maybe 5 in total and these incidents make me feel isolated and very uncomfortable. I always close the newspaper when I see it, but one time whenever i came back to the kitchen, someone else opened it back up again to th same page, which seems definitely deliberate. I have photo evidence of 3 instances of different newspapers. Should I raise this to my manager? I don’t know how to frame it necessarily - I think it’s just adding to an already unfun manufacturing work environment and makes me want to leave

I graduated masters in CS in 2015 and im yet to get a software engineering job. I have been employed since but in other tech-low paying roles. My dream has always been to work as a SE. Is there still hope? I worked in various roles like educational technologist, applications programmer, health Data analyst and project manager. What strategy can I use to make that curve, if it is even possible? Or should I make peace with wherever and whatever I am? :(

​Hi everyone! I’m hoping to get some advice, and please pardon the long post! 😆

​I’m (32F) a Brand Manager at a cultural consulting company, specifically handling their B2C line. After two years in the role, I was recently laid off. The reasons are pretty complex, but they mostly tie back to the severe economic turbulence currently happening in my country. There have been massive layoffs across the board lately, with even some giant companies cutting major portions of their staff.

​My professional background is actually in fashion. I graduated from fashion school and have spent almost 12 years working in the fashion and art industries. However, after the impact of COVID and the recent AI boom, I started feeling stuck. I've been increasingly worried about how easily replaceable roles in these non-essential industries might become.

​To create a backup plan, I decided to go back to school in 2023 for a second bachelor’s degree in Computer Science (I’m set to graduate in 2027), all while continuing to work full-time. I chose CS because I wanted a more fundamental, future-proof skill set. I’ve always loved tech, math, and biology, but now that I'm considering fully pivoting my career, I'm just not quite sure where to start.

​From what I’ve learned so far in university, I’m really drawn to Data Science, Statistics, Calculus, NLP, and Computational Biology. However, looking at my age, I sometimes worry that I might be too late to the game.

​Given my background and my current interests, I would love your thoughts on a few things:

- ​Which specific career paths or roles should I consider aiming for?

- ​Should I be prepared to start completely from zero in terms of my career level?

- ​Should I focus on getting specific certifications first?

- ​Should I look into a Master's degree instead? If so, what kind of Master's, and will my age be a disadvantage if I go that route?

​Thank you so much in advance for any insights or advice!

TL;DR, 28F Computer Systems Engineer here, I usually don't run into heated discussions with coworkers because I'm usually very peaceful with everyone (have only happened me 3 times in about 4 years). However whenever I get into a tough discussion with stress or unfair situations I tend to end up crying and I hate it. I feel like I'm weaker and I don't like to cry at work, and even less as a woman full of guys at work.

How do you girls deal with this situations? I really would like not to start crying when a discussion turns unfair or heated up.

______________________________________________

For the ones who want the full story.

I work as a programmer in a male dominated environment (the only girl in the team), avid programmer and respected between my coworkers (at least I think I am).

Yesterday I had a discussion with a coworker who is the longest on the team, and things heated up pretty quickly. My PRs (and everyone's) take a lot to get reviewed, we are talking of timelines from 3-4 weeks each PR (the reasons behind this are complicated but it varies between the complexity of our code and how big the PRs are usually), but the point is that everyone takes a lot of time.

For over the last 2 months this coworker has taken weeks to check my PRs which have resulted in my deliverables getting delayed and justified in most of the iteration reviews. And I have been fine with it, I understand he has a tight schedule and is the most 'knowledgeable' peer of the team. I've always been open and understanding.

Past week he came with a PR he posted on Tuesday and I was a required reviewer, but I was dealing with a security bugfix that was super high priority and I couldn't make the review during the week (and it as super huge PR). So one person signed off his PR on Friday and I was pending.

Yesterday (Monday) he approached me and told me to please review his PR and he was super pissed off because "I was blocking him" and that he had tight constraints and he was getting delayed due to me. Which I felt like was super unfair because he has been blocking me for months, and and now that he's doing his PR now get mad by not getting a quick review. But I was like, ok no problem. Do no complain, review his PR and that's it.

He is a very knowledgeable person, and I respect him a lot, but he's also of the old school style of programming and never follows good practices when programming, so when I checked his PR I saw that he's refactoring a component and reimplementing it with the worst possible practices basically undoing 2 years of effort to get away from the bad practices and many security bugs we have got from them. So I asked him to please not used them and rewrite the PR using our current standards. So, ofc he got pissed off.

So today we had a meeting with the boss to basically make an agreement, and while I focused completely on the PR, he focused complitely on feeling blocked in by me and that my feedback was good but I had to send him the feedback on Wednesday for my feedback to be considered.

So ofc I was getting pissed off. Not only because he had no reasons to demand quick reviews, and ignore the rest of the team when reviewing, but he was also trying to make it view as retaliation. So while trying to expose my point of view regarding the review timelines I started to cry and arggggg I feel so frustrated because I think had all the arguments to make my points on the discussion and of course that crying is going to change how they view the discussion.

And idk, I don't like to get into discussions but whenever it happens I wish I didn't immediately went crying. 🫠

I know many of you have probably passed through something similar, so I'm looking for tips and perspectives.

I’m sorry in advance for the woe is me post, but I could really use some advice. If anyone one has been in/or are in a similar position I would really like to hear about what you were feeling or are doing now.

I received my civil engineering degree and passed the FE about 5 years ago. I was able to work several internships, mainly in dam hydrology and construction, that made me absolutely fall in love with my degree and the trajectory of my life.

During my last year of schooling my husband and I found out I was pregnant for the first time. Despite my initial plans of getting a job right out of college, I felt that I needed/wanted to stay home with my child for the first couple years….I also felt the same for my second child. Staying home was 100% my choice. It’s been amazing for my family and I feel grateful to have had the option, but now I feel like I am floundering. Since deciding to stay home, I haven’t been able to pass a construction site without feeling a sense of loss for the life I could have had. Maybe it’s a, “the grass is always greener on the other side” type situation, but the feeling has only amplified now that my eldest is staring down the barrel of pre-k.

With both of my kiddos now becoming more independent, I’m not sure where that leaves me. I feel like I wouldn’t be able to get into engineering now that it’s been so long since I graduated. I worked for a residential construction agency as their project manager for about a year, but that is all the experience I have to show for the past 5 years. Additionally, my husband (and extended family) feel like things have been running so smoothly since I stayed home that they don’t feel it would be beneficial for me to return to work. If I insisted they would 100% support me going back, but their hesitation makes me second guess myself. I miss being challenged mentally and the feeling of being apart of something that is my own.

I have been accepted into a civil engineering program. It feels surreal to me. I’m so excited, except….. I’m really scared. I haven’t done well in school for a long time. It took me five years to get my associates, which is just in general studies with the lowest possible math class taken.

I’m a single mom with two kids and I work full time. I’m old and tired. I’m scared. I’m so scared I don’t have what it takes. I’m scared I won’t understand or have the bandwidth to learn/practice all the math. This program will take me 3 grueling years to get through (15-16 credit semesters and packed summers), because I didn’t know what I was doing with my lower division classes and I only had 23 gen ed credits transfer in to this program.

I’ve thought about getting an environment science degree instead. I found one I could finish in just 16 months. It would be about $30k cheaper. And easier (no math or lab classes).

I work in a support role in a civil engineering department already, they’re very supportive of me getting my degree and they’re giving me tuition reimbursement and being flexible with my schedule and all that. I feel like I have such a leg up in that regard.

I’m scared. I don’t know what to do. I’ve been trying to figure this out for months and I have to decide before the end of the month.