2022 OGA Year 12 Leavers Panel - Freya Allen (Class of 2019)
About me
Hi I'm Freya, a 2019 Somerville House Old Girl and you might have remembered me being up on stage as school captain! Since leaving school I've thrown myself headfirst into a combined Bachelors/Masters of Engineering majoring in Mechanical engineering at UQ.
I'm really passionate about resources and sustainability and have worked as an intern at a copper mine in Mount Isa and now with a renewable energy company, EDL energy, working on land fill gas, waste coal mine gas and renewable natural gas. I love meeting and networking with women interested in engineering, particularly through our women in engineering society Skirts in engineering. If you have any questions/queries/doubts about engineering, feel free to reach out to me anytime.
Q: How do I manage workplace expectations?
Get up and be grateful! Entering the workplace in your first junior position means no one is expecting you to solve all the big problems on your first day, or to have a myriad of technical knowledge. All they expect is enthusiasm, a willingness to learn and the ability to keep asking for help when you inevitably don't know what to do. Part 2 of this is even more important, be grateful for the opportunity. Yes, you may be doing the monotonous work your seniors don't want to do for a little bit, but you'll be surprised how much you can and will learn from it. Be grateful for the lessons you'll learn and seize the opportunity with two hands.
Q: How do you stay motivated and have a productive day?
The secret is, I don’t! Motivation is something very much out of our control, but the cure for lack of motivation is discipline. Particularly in uni when there is less structure and teachers breathing down your neck, personal discipline will carry you further than any pep talk or burst of energy will. Discipline yourself to your own limit. I have friends who can sit down and work from 6am till 11pm. Personally I prefer to work from 8am till 2pm with a one hour lunch break and then have a nice walk home! Disciplining yourself and creating routines will carry you much further than motivation ever could.
Q: What is it like to study engineering and do people say you're only there because you're a female?
Firstly, any bloke who refers to women as a "female" is a massive red flag! Moving on, I'd like to say this never happens, but the reality is you will be outnumbered as a woman studying engineering and you will get comments that your gender has given you special preference.
There's two ways to prove this wrong. Firstly, be competent and know that you're competent. You've chosen to do engineering because you're interested in it. Doesn't matter if you can't build an alarm clock from scratch or whatever stupid stuff the blokes on your table will be bragging about at the first year intro day. By the end of your degree, and at every stage along the way you are just as qualified and competent as they are. Know that, and act it. Don't let them make you the note taker, the scribe or the editor. Stick your hand up to the be the CAD modeller, the programmer, the project coordinator. You can do it, and they have just as little clue as what to do as you're feeling. That's the beauty of uni though, you're there to learn.
And secondly, here's a cute statistic to cut off the "girls get scholarships to do engineering" lies you'll be fed. For UQ, there are 3 first year women in engineering scholarship. And on average there are 330 women studying engineering every year. So maybe...the other 327 just want to be there!