我的STEM故事

Pima’s STEM Academic 咨询, Department of Sciences, 上个月，学生生活邀请米沙·道森与学生和员工分享她的STEM故事. This is a summary of her Feb. 25日表示.

作为一名热爱数学和科学的学生，她在北卡罗来纳高中提供的高级星际官方赌钱中表现优异, the gifted Misha Dawson was surely headed to college. 还是她?

“当我在10年级或11年级的时候(1990年左右)，我不知道我要上大学. 我这么说是因为在我那个年龄的时候，我的父母离婚了. 我当时认为我的单身母亲没有足够的资金供我上学. We didn't talk about it, and I didn't ask about it,道森说, 在最近对皮马社区学院的学生和员工的演讲中.

Lesson One: It’s Important to Have a Support System, a Village

一天，一位学校辅导员问道森打算去哪里上大学. 道森告诉她，她没有考虑过这个问题，因为她的母亲负担不起送她去上学的费用. Dawson was in the gifted and talented program and Math Honor Society. She was taking Advanced Placement classes in math and physics. 当道森得知她可以在没有家庭资助的情况下接受教育时，她感到很惊讶. Once they learned of Dawson’s predicament, her counselors and teachers rallied around her, helping her to seek out scholarships, apply for financial aid and fill out college applications. 

“他们真的成了我的村庄，确保我能够上大学，”道森说. “There’s nothing that we accomplish that we do alone.”

第二课:获取信息帮助你弄清楚你想做什么——或者不想做什么

And so Dawson enrolled at North Carolina State University, 她最初考虑成为一名电气工程师后，在哪里主修了工业工程. 

她很快意识到，对她来说，物理学的机械方面比她看不见的电学方面更具体. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to build a career on the electrical side. 她碰巧参加了一个全国黑人工程师协会的会议，一个女人走了进来，开始谈论对工作中的人的研究.

“这是工业工程，这激发了我对工业工程的兴趣,道森说。, who graduated with a bachelor of science in industrial engineering in 1995.

Lesson Three: Take Advantage of Internships, 培训, Networking and Other Development Opportunities

As a college student, Dawson became involved in Inroads, 一个全国性组织，致力于发展和安置有才华的少数民族青年在商业和工业, and creating corporate and community leaders.

“I was able to get information about résumé writing, interviewing skills, and the significance and importance of oral and written communication. 我们能够与其他行业专业人士见面，了解在企业环境中实际工作是什么样子,道森说.

She also spent three summers during college working at Lufkin/Cooper Tools.

这是你会对雇主或潜在雇主说的话, this person is serious about learning their craft.”

Lesson Four: Bloom Where You Are Planted

道森大学毕业后的第一份真正的工作是在西门子能源与自动化公司担任工业/制造工程师——这份工作需要她搬家, along with her husband, from her home state of North Carolina to Dallas. 

Dawson had lived in North Carolina her entire life. 在达拉斯, 她决定在那种环境中尽可能地学习一切——“在我生长的地方开花”.”

“It is where I got my core competency in building factories, 管理项目, and working alongside other engineers outside of my discipline,”她说。, adding that the job also included some mechanical and engineering work, further expanding her knowledge base. 

Lesson Five: You Can Do Hard Things

One of her supervisors at Siemens surely didn’t make it easy for her either.

“I tell my children, 你永远不会知道你是谁，直到你到达困难的另一边,道森说. “This was the lesson that taught me I could do hard things.”

“你永远不会知道你是谁，直到你到达困难的另一边。. This taught me I could do hard things."~米莎·道森

这位特别的主管积极地试图破坏道森，告诉从维修人员到高级工程师的所有人，不要在她为一家工厂设计整个照明面板组装区时提供任何帮助. He further told her not to interrupt production. 她必须在周四晚上最后一班下班到周一早班之间完成这项工作.

“Well, he made a mistake. If he had told me on Friday, I probably would have failed. He told me on 周一. And so I began to plan. 周一, 周二, 周三, 周四, I began to talk to contractors and other people and lay out the plan, 在AutoCAD和纸上设计我需要的东西，因为我必须把所有东西都准备好. 我周五去上班，直到周日才离开，”道森说.

“长话短说，他最终为我赢得了很多尊重. And even though he never quite apologized, he completely did a 180. Because he saw that I was not going to let his issues, whatever they were, burden me or stop me from doing what I needed to do.”

Lesson Six: Continue Your Educational Journey

As Dawson’s career progressed, 她开始思考管理，以及这需要什么样的技能和教育. 她开始更频繁地管理人员和项目，不仅要考虑提出新的技术解决方案，还要考虑如何将其推销给高层领导，并为其获得资金.

她认为MBA比其他技术学位更适合她的目标，于是进入了达拉斯浸会大学(Dallas Baptist University).

“The nugget here is to be a continuous learner.”

Lesson Seven: Be Resilient

Right after earning her MBA, Dawson starting working for Nokia Mobile Phones, another opportunity to learn and grow. 不幸的是, 她最终被解雇了，因为她工作的制造工厂搬到了雷诺索, 墨西哥. 

“你猜怎么着? 尽管这是一个很好的理由，但对我来说，这感觉就像是被拒绝了。. “Life sometimes serves you hard knocks, whether or not we feel like it’s fair, whether we deserve it or not. We have to be resilient.”

The wonderful thing that Nokia did, 然而, was connect its employees with talent acquisition people and career fairs.

“Lo and behold, I went to a career fair. 我坐在桌边，大约在接下来的一个小时左右，我收到了两份工作邀请. One of them was from Raytheon. And so I've been with Raytheon 21 years,道森说.

Now, Dawson’s father had spent 27 years in the U.S. Army, serving in the Vietnam War, the Grenada Altercation and Desert Storm. Originally from Fayetteville, N.C., he was an 82nd Airborne trooper. Dawson was a “military brat.” Her brothers served in the military, as had her husband.

“我想说，雷神对我来说是一个很容易的选择……这是一个做比手机更重要的事情的机会, bigger than lighting panels,”她说。.

道森说，这是一个帮助保护那些保卫国家的人的机会.

Lesson Eight: Choose a Path that Suits You

Dawson has been at Raytheon since 2001. In her current role as Director of Digital Technology, Digital Engineering Solutions, 她负责工程计算环境和技术软件的实施和支持大约15,000名工程人员遍布多个雷神导弹和防御业务地点.

道森说，雷神公司为她提供了多方面成长的机会, 她非常喜欢雷神公司的一个方面是，公司允许人们选择自己的成长方式.

“如果你想一辈子都做技术专家，你可以做. They are the rock stars at Raytheon. We have a Fellows path at Raytheon. We also have a managerial path at Raytheon. We'll have folks who are very technical come work for us. 他们认为，要想继续往上爬，唯一的办法就是走管理的道路. But that's not the case at Raytheon. If you want to go deep instead of broad, if you want to be a subject matter expert one day in electro-optics, RF,  指导, and navigation systems or whatever, 你可以这么做.”