Achievements and Challenges at University and the Workplace
Like most, when I turned 18, I wasn’t 100% sure what I wanted to study or where, all I knew was I wanted to go into Computer Science, in particular Artificial Intelligence. Some of the most memorable experiences were when my dad took me to a few open days, the one that had a lasting impression on me was the school of Computer Science at the University of Birmingham. What sealed the deal was the robotics demonstrations. I became mesmerised at that moment and wanted to study there so I could build cool robots. I decided to apply and one of the entry requirements was a high grade in Maths A-level.
I remember going back to college and telling my A-level Maths lecturer about it. Up until this point in my academic life, I had always been praised for my abilities. However, instead of encouraging and supporting me, he crushed my spirit by saying I’d never get the grades to get in and I should rethink it. Whilst it was upsetting to hear, his lack of belief in me only strengthened my resolve to get in, I worked hard, got my results and I was in.
I was excited to start University, I believed it would be a place of learning and prospering amongst intellectual equals alongside fun of course. There were many ups and downs throughout my University experience and overall I really enjoyed it, learnt so much academically and on a wider level and made friends for life. My positive experiences of University far outweighed the negatives. I got to work on some interesting projects, in particular the robot dog we built for the robotics project and an implementation I did of my final year supervisor’s work on the Curiosity Rover was very cool. I was actively involved in a lot of societies and the guild of students. I ran the computer science society in my department and I wanted to make sure students got the most out of their experience in the department. We ran many pizza nights, games nights and lots of other social events. I made quite a few very good and close friends who I would class as my ‘friends for life’ and who I, to this day, have a relationship with, speak to on a daily or weekly basis and who are very supportive of any endeavours I partake in.
With the positives there were a few negatives along the way and the feeling that most resonates and sticks is that there was a massive disparity between the male and female students, there were so few females on the course and very few female lecturers. Many times, the male lecturers would show both overt and covert disdain for the female students and made us feel like we weren’t smart enough to be on the course, nor did we belong there regardless of whether we outperformed the male students or not. One example that really stuck was how the only three female students on the AI course were grilled harder (mutually exclusively) than the male students when it came to the project vivas and were led to believe they just weren’t good enough and they should feel lucky if they passed the course! (But of course, once again I worked hard and I passed the course and got my degree with a good classification). If I could give one piece of advice to teaching staff 20 years later, it would be to tone down the elitism and actively encourage and support women, ethnic minorities and marginalised people into STEM.
When I moved into the world of work at 22 years old, this was also the prevailing attitude there, especially towards the (very few) female developers or females in technology (and the workplace in general). I watched men promoted over me for doing far less work, being told I could ‘have a pay rise but not a promotion’ and being actively discouraged from working as a developer by being told ‘women just can’t code.’ There were also micro aggressions towards ethnic minority employees too, however one overt example stuck out when on a work trip abroad a female manager asked me to share a room with my colleague, when I refused she said ‘Don’t you all (Asian people) share rooms anyway?.’ It was soul crushing, but it did not break my resolve. I (like in my academic life) wanted to prove everyone wrong. Throughout my career I have never wanted to be the person who ‘just works and goes home’. I’ve wanted those around me (especially women and ethnic minorities) to have equal opportunities. In addition to my day job I wanted to do more, so I volunteered my time to mentor junior colleagues at the workplace and young girls interested in STEM outside of the workplace, I set up a Robots for Schools programme for young people from impoverished backgrounds, I won internal awards for innovation and my profile was one that was used to help Capgemini secure the Women in Innovation corporate award in 2009. I haven’t let these challenges jade me and although there are challenges still to overcome, I feel like my working life has given me a real sense of independence and my accomplishments have meant that much more to me as I have had to overcome hurdles to achieve them. I have also made friends and contacts in the industry who are very supportive, have mentored me and championed me to progress up the career ladder. As we move into the future I have a lot of hope that attitudes will continue to change for the better and we can create a workplace where empathy and compassion are at the forefront and each and every one of us helps others along the journey and does their utmost to raise each other up and level the playing field.