Your Self Care shouldn’t suffer at the expense of Career Excellence – Nnennaya Udochu
Female engineers have been branded to be nerds and unattractive. It is a common belief that female engineers have no sense of style, not feminine enough and probably too strong for the average man. Contrary to this widely held bias, Nnennaya Udochu is a firm believer that female engineers can be trendy, decent, and elegant. Nnennaya’s life and style is full proof that women are going against this bias. As an analog engineer, she doesn’t fit into what you’d typically call your hard hat-wearing engineer. She has held the office of a Professor Faculty in the Mathematics department at the University of Portland, Oregon., and she balances career with self-care. Nnennaya doubles as a fashion blogger and also motivates ladies who fear that taking a career in engineering or any career in STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics) would impede and perhaps limit their chances of a relationship. In this article, she shares her experience in the profession gives her insights on the misconceptions placed on women in STEM. What prompted you to want to become an Engineer? I enjoyed solving a lot of Math problems and enjoyed a particular topic in my physics class, Electromagnetics. It was from that course in Secondary School I decided I wanted to pursue a degree in Electrical Engineering. What setbacks did you experience pursuing this dream? Taking some engineering courses that would make me think, “why me” or “God help me” because I found them very challenging. For example, Thermodynamics and Statics. Aside from those challenges, the fear of self-doubt. Sometimes, just believing in yourself regardless of what people think goes a long way. I remember being in a study group where we were discussing our prospective first jobs and I said Microsoft or any Fortune 500 company. The whole group burst out laughing but today here I am staying in the course of what I want for myself. Did you have a hard time proving your credibility to your male lectures/superiors? Yes, I did most of the time. It took a lot of hard work and proving myself but I would always let the quality of my work delivery speak volume. Once you’re very knowledgeable about your expertise and firm about making decisions, it would be difficult for anyone to question your abilities in the workforce. Females in #STEM tend to recline to the background whenever leadership or academic roles are called for. Was this your experience? No this isn’t my experience. I am very tenacious in the pursuit of leadership or academic roles in my career; certainly not shying away from it. I’ve been fortunate enough to have been an Adjunct Professor at the University of Portland, Oregon and I’m continuously getting mentored by senior leaders in my industry. As an Analog Engineer, what does your typical workday look like? My workdays are very busy and a lot of critical thinking is involved. Every day I am faced with new challenges on addressing power issues and honestly, everything I learned in Physics II (especially applied principles of electromagnetics) are applied from day to day. Basically, I am mentally tasked each day. You are also an Instagram blogger. Tell us about your journey. The journey so far has been great! I continue to curate content on my platform to inspire people across the world through my travel shots, beauty, hair and showcasing different fashion looks ranging from street style to guest inspired looks at a wedding. I’ve collaborated with brands such as Pitusa, Chi Chi London, Res Ipsa, Palmers, Victoria Emerson just to mention a few and my work has been featured on various Instagram and media platforms. The most exciting experience I’ve had from my journey so far was being privileged to have featured on a fashion segment on Fox News (Fox12 Oregon) discussing the latest Fall fashion trends in 2018. In your opinion why do you think women in #STEM do not take self-care as a top priority? I feel it’s because they don’t want to appear unserious for their jobs and have their co-workers not take them seriously in a meeting or on a project. The perception of a woman figure in STEM is always painted wearing dirty clothing, or plain tops and jeans and this have clouded some women’s judgment on how they would like to present themselves. What advice do you have for women starting out in #STEM? Stay persistent and confident in the pursuit of your career goals. Don’t let the presumptions society has about women in STEM be a reason you get discouraged in achieving your career goals. Who you are or aspire to be shouldn’t be limited by someone’s experience. What’s the look on people’s face when you’re all dressed up like a diva and you tell them what you do?. They are always astonished and perplexed. Some make decent remarks like, “Beauty and Brains” while others find the need to argue. Once a co-worker said I was in Finance and I said, “No”. Only for him to turn back around still amazed and say, “I always thought you were in Finance and you were a spoilt brat because of the way you dress”. Between anger and range, I managed to get my emotions in check and simply responded, “For someone educated that is quite shallow of you to say”. Interested in contributing for She Leads Africa? Click here.
JESSICA NAA ADJELEY KONNEY: I TURNED MY BOREDOM INTO PASSION FOR FASHION BLOGGING
Jessica Naa Adjeley Konney found living alone quite boring so she chose to stay on campus after lectures to while away time. As spending time on campus meant more time on the internet, she discovered blogging and entertainment blogs in Ghana like Ameyaw Debrah. This led to her decision to turn her boredom into a passion to keep her busy after school hours. Even though she knew nothing about blogging, she took a bold step and her experience in journalism/writing to set up a blog called Fashion 101 which later turned to Trendsnblendsgh as she saw the need to rebrand once her blog began to grow. She chose fashion blogging because there was no platform specifically dedicated to fashion in Ghana especially Ghanaian fashion. Over time, her blog has grown to become one of the best in Ghana and the Harper’s Bazaar of Africa called Trendsnblendsgh the go-to online hub for everything African Fashion starting with Ghana. Jessica now covers fashion events, features fashion entrepreneurs, offers style tips, offers professional advice to young fashion brands etc. Describe how you first got into blogging Blogging for me started as a hobby to while away time during my days at the Ghana Institute of Journalism. I used to spend so much time on campus after school back in the day because I had nowhere to go as I lived alone, so being at home was quite boring. While on campus, I surfed the internet a lot and that was when I realized that there were entertainment websites like Ameyaw Debrah, Ghana gist blogging about entertainment and there were fewer blogs on fashion so that was the moment I decided to turn my boredom into a passion to keep me busy after school hours. Interestingly, I had no clue about blogging whatsoever but I took the bold step to set up my blog using blogger.com and called it Fashion 101. With no direction whatsoever I set out to start fashion blogging. I thought to myself that once I had experience in journalism and writing I could definitely put together some content for this blog and I guess I did. How do you keep your social media pages lit and drive traffic to your blog? I see myself as a fashion journalist because I’m always on the lookout for contents that will make the news. After every post, I made sure to share the link to my blog on all my social media platforms (back then it was just Facebook and Twitter) and I consistently kept sharing. I also attended fashion events and introduced myself as a fashion blogger because it was the most common term people could understand. This wasn’t easy initially because it was new to event organizers but consistency and relevant content got me where I am today. With regards to keeping the social media pages lit, we take a lot of time to curate images from different sources. We are always looking out for the best photos that will not only engage our audience but keep our timeline clean as well. We sometimes collaborate with photographers for some of the stunning images but quite often we source these photos from other pages or brands. How do you get clients and generate revenue/income? For a long time, I felt the numbers or traffic wasn’t enough for me to monetize so I explored other ways to raise revenue or income. I started offering digital marketing services to clients for as low as about 100Ghc back then. Then, I also charged brands who promoted their lookbooks on my blog and platforms and that’s basically been how I make money. Trendsnblendsgh has gone into brand consultation services and helping young brands establish themselves all at a small fee. Monetization is however on our to-do list for the year. [bctt tweet=”People don’t see your dream as big as you do so don’t rely on them for validation – @dje_djelyn ” username=”SheLeadsAfrica”] Would you say fashion blogging is a great financial plan? Do you see a future with this career path? To be honest it’s not a great financial plan unless you’re determined to make it one. It’s new and fresh to people, especially in Ghana. Fashion entrepreneurs here don’t understand why you need to be paid for your services and it’s quite difficult and frustrating trying to get them to understand. I’d say have a financial backing, extra sources of income so it sustains the passion. At this point, I see it as a great career path for me. To be an editor-in-chief of one of Africa’s most renowned fashion website and some more career opportunities in this same field. Did you encounter any challenges when you started Trendsandblendgh? What did you learn from it? Always waiting for approval or validation/support. When I started trendsandblendsgh, I wasn’t so confident as an individual and also in what I was doing. I was seeking validation from others to tell me if this post was good enough or this idea was great. What this did was to slow me down entirely because until I had gotten approval or even support from someone I wouldn’t move. It’s one thing I have learned to fight and rise from. People don’t see your dream as big as you do so if you want to rely on them for validation, approval or support you might as well not start anything at all. Other than you, which 3 fashion bloggers are your absolute favorite and why? For style bloggers I love Irony of Ashi, her style is simply elegant. I dote on Afua Rida, I love her uniqueness in styling. I also love my friend Nuel Bans of debonair Afrik, I love his creative issues and admire his passion. Who is your number one fashion inspiration, favorite fashion magazine, and designer? With the rise of style influencers, it’s becoming extremely difficult to stick to one fashion icon or style icon. I tend to