Engineering A Career

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It was the women’s floorball finals at the 2015 South East Asian Games where Singapore played Thailand in front of a full house crowd at ITE College Central. With both teams tied at three goals each after the final whistle, it was all up to a penalty shootout to decide on the champion.

Much to the delight of the crowd, the shootout ended in Singapore’s favour and the national team bagged a gold medal. Laura Tan, 26, was part of that floorball team.

“I had to juggle intense training and my full time job, and it was quite challenging. But it was worth it at the end of the day,” recalled Laura. Off-court, Laura is a full-time engineer who graduated with a mechanical engineering degree at the National University of Singapore in 2014.

 

 

A self-confessed handson person, Laura had always seen herself in a career that required her to be active. Becoming an engineer and floorball player was a natural choice.

“I’ve always been interested in machines and airplanes. I was inquisitive and I liked to fix things a lot. As a child, I was always looking for something to fix. So I knew from an early age that an office job that required me to sit at my desk all day long would not be suitable for me,” she said.

True to her competitive spirit, being in a male-dominated industry such as engineering does not faze her. She is currently a manufacturing engineer, overseeing the production of solar panels at REC Solar. There are currently three females out of the 12 engineers in her department.

“I was in the science stream back in junior college, where there were 19 guys and only five girls in my class. When I was in university, most of my course mates were guys too. So when I came to this job, I was kind of used to being one of the only few girls,” she said.

 

 

Laura advises women who are interested in the engineering industry to not be afraid and to take on the challenge.

“First you have to try, don’t be afraid of the unknown. Take things one step at a time. When you start work as an engineer, no matter your gender, those in your team will listen to you as they know that you are in charge. You have to believe in yourself and they will trust in what you say and your expertise.

“Don’t worry about the male dominance in the industry. From experience, gender doesn’t mean much. In fact, because female engineers do things and, to a certain extent, think differently, we tend to come up with good solutions to problems,” she said.

 

 

 

Source: NTUC This Week 19 March 2017, Story and Photo by Fawwaz Baktee