Three young women talk about the highs and lows of their careers so far:
Are you even in the right place here?
Inga Miadowicz had to listen to comments like these during her computer science studies. She still went her own way and today works as a software developer at SAP.
Inga Miadowicz attended a high school in Düsseldorf with a musical and artistic profile. But when she had to choose an elective in eighth grade, she didn't think twice. She chose computer science. “I had previously made videos on my computer at home and tried my hand at websites,” the 23-year-old says today. She simply enjoyed it and wanted more. As one of four girls, she learned to develop a simple painting program.
At home, Inga began programming websites and sought internships when she needed a challenge. For example, in the IT department at Aldi Süd, where she automated workflows and thus helped to make the employees' paperwork easier. Before she knew it, the company offered her a dual study place. It didn't matter that she was a woman. “Sure, it was always the case that fewer women were interested in computer science,” says Inga, “but it wasn’t until I was studying that I personally realized that I was in the minority.”
Skepticism, even among professors
This realization hit her right after her very first lecture. In the cafeteria, a few fellow students sat down to summarize the lecture and their first professor. Inga wasn't happy with everything. A colleague promptly replied: "Well, you should think about whether you're in the right place here anyway." Stunned by this comment from someone who couldn't judge Inga as a person or her professional skills, she reacted rudely, she remembers. “I freaked out, I think I even insulted him.” Looking back, Inga says that women have to stay above people like that.
Otherwise she probably would hardly have gotten through her studies, because her being a woman was viewed with skepticism on several occasions. “In addition to fellow students, professors also asked me why I was doing this in the middle of the lecture,” says Inga. Even outside the lecture hall, there was always great surprise when the young woman said that she was studying applied computer science.
Undeterred to the top job
Today Inga works for the software manufacturer SAP. There she develops software for consumer industries; sometimes the customers are supermarket chains, sometimes clothing stores. Inga is supposed to ensure that business processes such as transferring discounts between suppliers and the store run automatically. She has to renew existing SAP programs every now and then. To do this, she and her team look over customers' shoulders as they use the programs in workshops, finding out what is too complicated and where the users are having difficulties. She then tries to develop a solution, for example by making the interface of a program more modern, simpler and more intuitive.
Inga didn't feel comfortable in her first team. This was also because she didn't feel like she was being taken seriously as a woman. She solved the problem by looking for a new team internally and is very satisfied today. “Of course, colleagues sometimes talk about the woman at home and what she might not be able to do, but that’s completely normal,” says Inga. Because hand on heart: this is how women talk about men too. Now and again.
30 men – 4 women
Kerstin Fischer was the only girl in her school year who chose a technical course of study. And she wasn't even a math whiz. But that apparently didn't matter, because the industrial engineer successfully started her career at the ZF technology group.
When her first university acceptance letter landed in the mailbox, everything had to happen very quickly. The university wanted an answer quickly. Industrial engineering. Should Kerstin Fischer take the step and jump into the possibly cold waters of a technical degree program? “At school, math wasn’t really my strong point and I chose physics,” says Kerstin. Today she has to laugh. Maybe she should wait until the postman put the economics letters in the box. But: “I knew industrial engineering was a challenge, but it was more diverse because it didn’t just include economics,” says the 25-year-old almost seven years later. Kerstin said yes.
Annoying comments
Kerstin has recently started working at ZF, a leading automotive supplier in drivetrain and chassis as well as active and passive safety technology. There she takes care of internal marketing for IT trends. Your customers are the individual areas within ZF. Kerstins makes new processes in IT innovation projects known and ensures that they can be used. The projects attempt to improve processes in production or workplaces using artificial intelligence, virtual and augmented reality or advanced analytics.
The other girls in her year couldn't imagine having a job like this when they graduated from school. Kerstin was the only one who chose a technical course of study. But the knowledge that electrical engineering was suddenly on Kerstin's timetable caused more recognition than surprise among Kerstin's friends. As a woman, she was not alone at university, but she was clearly outnumbered, and some of her fellow students dropped out of their bachelor's degree.
In the master's program, out of 34 students, only four women sat in the lecture hall. She was rarely aware that sometimes she was the only one. She has hardly had any negative experiences. Only a memory of a quote from a tax professor made her turn up her nose. “When they get married, they first slap the marriage contract on their wife,” he said, as if no women were present. Kerstin remained relaxed. “Such comments are exhausting and annoying,” she says, “but they don’t deserve to be appreciated.”
Aha moment through practice
Kerstin was sometimes unsure at the beginning because she wasn't particularly enthusiastic about areas such as electrical engineering. Then the fourth semester began, Kerstin's practical semester. “And then I knew: I was in the right place.” Putting the theory of the lecture into practice, experiencing first-hand what the processes in production technology look like and what job she was involved in – the young engineer learned that “practice can change you completely brings a different perspective.« Practice also presents other challenges, especially for someone with Kerstin's profile: young, female, career starter. “I first had to gain respect,” she remembers. She was supposed to assign tasks to the experienced men who worked on the machines in production. Difficult. But not impossible.
Kerstin's tactic: let the men explain the machines to her, value and use their know-how. “After four weeks, they almost only called me and hardly ever called my supervisor,” says Kerstin. She noticed that her young, male colleagues were able to do this even more quickly, but she doesn't want to make too much of it. »Sure, being a woman increases the effect, but that is not the only reason why something is difficult.«
No interest in role clichés
Anna Schwabe sat alone among men in the lecture hall and even later sometimes struggled with the feeling of not being taken seriously. However, today, as a test engineer at ENERCON, that is history.
The school qualifications of young girls in Germany are so good that theoretically all doors are open to them. In practice, however, most people still choose a “typically female” professional field. The Federal Statistical Office found in 2016 that more than half of girls choose from just ten different training occupations in the dual system. There was no scientific or technical course of study among them. To ensure that girls and young women in Germany recognize and exploit their career opportunities, the federal government organizes the annual Future Day, then called “Girl's Day”. Anna Schwabe also took advantage of the opportunity to try out supposedly male jobs for a day. She accompanied her father, who served in the Bundeswehr Air Force. “This allowed me to develop a strong connection to technology, especially aviation,” says the 28-year-old looking back.
Follow the feeling
Initial interest was aroused, but the penny dropped towards the end of her school days. During a voluntary internship at MTU, a German engine manufacturer in Hanover, Anna gained an insight into engine testing technology. The daughter is an engineer - her father in particular was proud of her. “My teachers and some acquaintances were rather skeptical because many people dropped out of their technical studies,” says Anna. “That made me very unsettled at first.” But Anna tried to follow her feelings and not give too much attention to role clichés, and ultimately found herself in a lecture hall full of men. “At the beginning, as a woman, you feel a bit lost,” says Anna. “But that changed over the course of my studies.” Anna found many male student friends and one particularly good friend. They initially did not experience any discrimination.
Stand your ground, but don't bend
Anna was all the more shocked when she wrote her bachelor's thesis in a company in the steel industry. “There I often had the feeling that I wasn’t being taken seriously and had to assert myself,” says Anna. But she persevered and did it. Today she works as a test engineer at ENERCON, the largest German manufacturer of wind turbines. It simulates and tests rotor blades for their behavior during ongoing wind turbine operation. Working in a man's world, asserting yourself and proving yourself. That's not always easy. But Anna looks back with satisfaction: "I think it's just important to stay true to yourself, no matter what others say, and to be courageous."
