Embracing the Unknown
Overturning the competitiveness of the job climate starts with preparing yourself for the realities of the modern workplace so you can land a job and hit the ground running.
Having a breadth of experience to draw from allows you to demonstrate your capabilities to employers. Working in roles from volunteering to office jobs gives you a chance to be an active learner which is the highest valued attribute in job candidates sought by STEM employers in the workplace. Employers value individuals who find ways to learn efficiently while on the job.
Real Skills prepares students through our programs and events to become active learners ready for the speed and aptitude expected by their future employers. A past participant of our STEM Leaders Program (SLP) has gone on to accrue life-altering experiences during her roles in an office job, university research, and volunteering in student society which have shaped her as an active learner. She has agreed to share what she learnt so far and where these learnings have taken her since.
Self-Introduction
“My name is Renée, and I’m currently in my fourth year of studying a combined degree in Electrical Engineering and Economics at UNSW. I haven’t settled on which specific career path I want to take yet, but I am interested in how we can use technology to empower people to achieve amazing things.”
“During my mechatronics project in the Real Skills Winter 2018 SLP, I found that I really enjoyed that working hard to bring the project to fruition and presenting it to an audience so they can share even a bit of my passion for the work too. In addition, the SLP gave me the chance to work with a diverse group of people, some older than me, who I could learn from and look up to. Gaining these experiences from the SLP gave me a push to look for other opportunities where I could compete and work with others on things that I’m passionate about!”
The Office Job
“I had a great time learning technical skills during my time at Red Marker. The testing automation, data analysis and website projects all required me to learn to write code in different languages and use lots of different tools on-the-job. Red Marker is the place I learnt extensively about how to use Excel’s VLOOKUP for data analysis. I also remember Mark, our CPO, providing training on the basics of SQL on the whiteboard for the first time. Since then, I’ve also had the opportunity to learn and use Python, testing tools like Katalon Studio and Codeception, as well as some HTML.”
“I found working in an office environment for the first time really fun. It was pretty amazing to experience what goes on in a professional environment — how different teams communicate, how everyone stays on top of their work, and importantly, how it feels to get free office food. I also got to experience Stand-Ups, and have a peek inside the agile development process. Integrating into this office routine and environment was really enjoyable and it opened my eyes to what goes on in a professional workplace. Since I had never experienced anything like it before, I was really eager and went with the flow, so it wasn’t very difficult to adjust and integrate into this new environment.”
Working where you learn
“Working on a research project at university appealed to me because it allowed me to dive deep into the area of Electrical Engineering that I was interested in, and see how the knowledge I learnt in my classes was being used in the cutting-edge of my field. It also meant I could work closely with academics who are experts in their area, and learn from them.”
“I worked on the UNSW research project, ‘Speech-controlled mobile games for speech therapy’, where the goal was to build an Automatic Speech Recognition system for children’s speech. During my time on the project, I as part of the research team entered an international speech recognition competition. I wrote data preparation scripts using Bash for hundreds of hours of children’s speech data, and we used this data to train probabilistic and statistical models, and deep neural networks. I also got to work on UNSW’s supercomputer Katana. In the end, we achieved a great result as our children’s speech recognition system placed second out of all the other research teams in the world.”
Voluntary Extracurriculars
“I started out at UNSW Women in Technology (WIT) when I was in 2nd year as an Events Subcommittee member, and moved on to become the Events Executive in 2019. I was responsible for leading a wonderful team of subcommittee members in conceptualising and organising all the events WIT offered for that year — from resume workshops, to our first high school event at IBM to our annual flagship Hackathon and Networking Night. WIT appealed to me because it meant I could work and connect with a bunch of inspiring leaders, develop myself and make a difference in an area that I really care about!”
“The two biggest challenges I remember most from being an Events Executive was prioritising, and imposter syndrome. Initially, I really struggled to prioritise things — I said yes to every opportunity, and didn’t delegate tasks properly during events which meant that I was stressing out over everything and forgetting about my team. At the same time, I felt like a unqualified university student masquerading under a fancy title. I overcame these challenges by trusting in my own strengths and recognising my limitations. This translated into learning how to evaluate the value of opportunities and also how to manage risks and setbacks. I haven’t yet become an expert in prioritising or team management, but I’m glad to know where to start.”
What are the main takeaways from Renée’s journey?
Taking one step out of your comfort zone can be followed by many steps in different directions to discover yourself and your career. As Renée has discovered, you can find yourself in many different roles that you couldn’t imagine yourself doing in the past. She has obtained four important life lessons from embracing her past roles and duties:
- “Try to be open to as many new experiences as you can. “This has helped me figure a lot of things out about myself and the world.”
- “Ask for help when you can’t do it alone. This is exemplified by a cheesy quote from one of my lecturers: “No matter how easy a question might seem to someone else, if you don’t know the answer, then at that moment it’s the toughest question in the world.” —
- “Make time for yourself and your interests outside your career and academics. I regret not doing this for a while and my whole life reached a better place once I gave myself some time.”
- “Believe in your own worth. Knowing your strengths gives you confidence when given the chance to lead others.”
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