Why I'm inspired to be a #GirlDay #RoleModel : Introduce a Girl to Engineering

What inspired you to become a Girl Day Role Model?

I was inspired to become a Girl Day Role Model after being introduced to Discover E’s Engineers Week a few years ago on social media. 

I was thrilled to learn that there was even such a thing as Engineer’s Week because I love Engineering.  And I almost missed out on the chance to study Engineering Technology because I just didn’t know about it.

And I should have because my father is an Engineer.  I knew that growing up but I didn’t think much about it.

During middle school and especially High School, I thought I wanted to be a Fashion Designer because I learned to sew & I love Vogue and clothes and makeup.

I thought it was sewing that I liked, but I later found out it was the process of knowing how an article of clothing comes to existence.

So the decision to study Engineering Technology came during college registration when I was signing up for college classes and my parents were with me in the Gym, and the Registrar asked me what classes I wanted to take, what did I want to major in?  And I really didn’t know so my dad said, Samantha, you can try Engineering, they always need female Engineers.

So I gave it a go, I signed up to major in Electrical Engineering Technology at South Carolina State University and I never looked back.

I gave Engineering a Go (because someone I know and trust made a suggestion)

And I’m inspired to be a Girl Day Role Model so I can make a suggestion.  A suggestion to all young people and especially girls so we can have more of a mix of diversity in Engineering.  A suggestion to a young person that has no idea what that nagging in their head is.  To suggest their Gift and Purpose and Skill may be invisible.  To suggest their path, their Career --  is the Process of Thought.  To suggest Engineering, and to bring forth the potential for more solutions, more cures, more products, services, technology, space travel, agriculture, manufacturing, everything resource driven that improves quality of life.

It is now my turn to make a SUGGESTION.

How does your own story impact your outreach?

My own story impacts my outreach that’s for sure.  My own story says that an Engineering candidate may not know Engineering is their gift.  And this is true for girls too.

I know they may be expressing themselves in ways that materialize as cooking, sewing, athletics, anything really.  Some of these ways are UNCONVENTIONAL.

My outreach efforts show Engineering in ways that are in fact ‘unconventional’.  When I was a middle school student, it would have benefitted me to know that my interests in sewing, cooking, shop, and athletics are tied to my Engineering abilities.  Maybe by pointing out there was a reason why my success in Gymnastics increased when my understanding of the mechanics of gymnastics increased.

I can say with confidence that when someone says Cosmetics or Soda the first thing they do not think of is ENGINEERING.  But Cosmetic Chemistry, Manufacturing Engineering, and Industrial Engineering are all tied to Makeup and Beverages.

I use these unconventional expressions of Engineering to reach what young people like and find interesting.  And I also like them and find them interesting. It’s no secret that beauty and fashion and makeup and selfies and snapchat are even more popular these days as social media abounds.

So working in the Cosmetics Manufacturing field gives me the perfect opportunity to be relevant to what young people and main stream society are drawn to.

We do things in our Beauty Lab like label all our materials with formal scientific names and chemical formulas.  We also have process posters that list scientific vocabulary and facts about color theory and -- nutrition data about plant material.  We do this so that when guests come to our Lab, they see makeup that is popular and information that is familiar, most of the time, people say “I just studied about antioxidants or minerals in one of my STEM classes.’  This allows them to see the technical math & science world as a part of popular culture.  This makes my ‘choose Engineering’ suggestion easier and more exciting.

I also go to our local school and volunteer in their STEM initiatives.  Because I used to work for Pepsi Cola in Manufacturing Operations, I used to go to classrooms and I called myself Mrs. Sodamaker.  We would make a mock soda and talk about Carbon Dioxide, Water and the Water Cycle, Fructose & Agriculture and more.  Students loved seeing how soda was made.  It’s an unconventional approach to introducing Engineering.

My own story impacts my outreach in ways that are unconventional.  We have a LIP GLOSS LAB to introduce Girls to Engineering.  I think that is unconventional.  And that would have peaked my interest as a Middle and High School student.

I hope to do the same for others.

We can change the world with lipstick

Yes it's true.  We can change to world with lipstick!

Today is the beginning of Engineers Week, a time to encourage and mentor youth to consider Engineering as a field of study and mastery.

And for skincare & cosmetics, we always need more innovators.  Why you ask?  With all the brands and products that are out there now, why?

Because there are still more solutions to be found (the fact that we are still seeking means 'it' hasn't been found!).  And skincare is body care.  And body care is people care.  And everything that we eat, touch, and allow in our personal atmospheres affects our quality of life.  And higher quality of life yields higher quality of life (iron sharpens iron).

Engineers Week seeks diversity in Engineering and Science.  We need a vast number of views in order to provide improvements in skincare, which leads to improvments in quality of life (that's 'why' we are looking, right?)

For example, one of the reasons I fell in love with natural skincare is because my grandparents grew sugar cane.  And the very first beauty product I ever made was sugar scrub made using sugar cane.  This was so exciting for me because I have a personal connection, a history, a long lineage with stuff that comes from the soil.  About 10 years ago I went on a quest to learn more about my grandfather and grandmother's upbringing.  I found out they worked on a plantation in Plantersville, SC and started doing so very young in life.  They worked on Arundel Plantation, just a few miles from where I always visited as a child.  I learned that even my father worked on that same plantation as a young boy.  And how the plantations in the low country of South Carolina started out as rice plantations. 

Why is this important to beauty and skincare?  Because my perspective of beauty and skincare comes from the view on a farmer's great great granddaughter.  And when I look at sugar cane I see both beauty and sacrifice, I see honor and hope, the soil and the sky.  Because of this viewpoint, we at Dirty Beauty chose to develop our Sugar Body Polishes using Fair Trade Certified Sugar.  We do this so that the farmer's who grow our sugar cane can have the resources to send their children to school, instead of working in the fields.  We know that children that go to school have children that get to go to school, and that's good for the world.  And because of my view, it is my RESPONSIBILITY to use that to add to the industry that what I know to DO what I can to push good, and add a facet of beauty that adds to the sparkle.

A side note about purposes behind our backgrounds & experiences | one day when I was driving home from work, my car caught on fire all of a sudden.  It just started smoking from the hood for no apparent reason.  I stopped in the median, totally confused, put the car in park and got out.  Within seconds my car was totally engulfed in flames.  I was actually on the way to pick up our infant son from childcare, and I was standing there so thankful that he wasn't in the car with me when that happened.  Well of course the fire trucks came and put out the fire.  I was standing across the street at a gas station, just waiting, there was nothing else I could do.  I didn't cry or anything, until later.  I just felt like something very terrible could have happened and didn't.  No one got hurt, not me, not my family, not the fire fighters, not the gentleman that tried to come near to see if anyone was in the car (I stood there waving my hands saying 'I'm over here dont' worry!'), not any passerbys.   So I was thankful, and confused.  Then several years later, on the way home from visiting out of town family, we were driving down I-20 and all of a sudden traffic came to a stand still.  Ahead in the horizon was a billow of thick black smoke in the median.  We slowed to 5 mph then to a stop as people passed the scene slowly and first responders arrived.  So there we were, car full of luggage and car seats and we are stopped on the interstate.  As we approached the smoke, we saw a car had caught on fire, and we were in a long line of traffic on a busy traveling weekend.  Surveying the scene, we saw a couple of people sitting on the grass, including a little boy.  And I thought for SURE that was not their car.  They were sitting there, and there were hundreds of people and cars passing by.  And I said to my husband, 'I wonder if that's their car?'  He said probably not because the police were there and all these people were there but it still seemed odd.  So I said that I was gonna run up the hill real quick and just check.  So as I came close to them I said, 'Is that your car, are you OK?'  The lady and a friend and her son responded that it was indeed their car.  I remember the look, because it was the same look on their face that was in my heart when I watched my car burn in flames.  I asked, 'is there something I can do for you?' and the one lady replied that they were on their way to pick up her husband from work, and it was just ahead at the next exit.  'Well, we can do that, we can take you to the next exit!'  We all crammed in our car and took them to meet her husband at the next exit.  So all those people for miles that drove by before we got to them and no one stopped.  Why?  Because it was MY responsibility to!  I was the one that went through it and I knew how it felt.  Maybe no one else but me knoew anything about that at that time.  I was passing by for that time.  To get them to the next exit.  Because I walked in their shoes. 

When beauty is gentle to the environment and to others, results achieved by the user continues a ripple of positive energy around the world or around the corner and right back to the ground from which it came.  This is beauty 360.  This is beauty that stores energy for the future instead of consuming it.  And variety in backgrounds and experiences rewards all of us.

When we have more innovators this is what happens, more solutions, more discovery, more beauty.  I love Engineers Week because we can encourage the young people in our lives and tell them about Engineering and Design.  Maybe our children or a child we know loves arts & crafts.  Or loves knowing 'why' (I know there are LOTS of those, especially 3 year olds!).  Or sewing, or mechanics, or even cooking.  These are intersts that sometimes have 'engineering' written all over them, just demonstrated in one of these ways.

A side note about Math | just about the time children starts middle school, a separation in status begins between the 'maths' and the 'math-nots'.  During this time, new concepts begin to be introduced, and what seems to be 'lies' have been exposed.  We all started counting 1, 2, 3, etc.  Then one day we learned about zero (0), then negative numbers got 'invented', then numbers between numbers (fractions) and it starts to feel like just too much.  Young folks start to tune out math, and since engineering sounds like math translated, engineering gets the off button too.  When we tutor students, we help them understand math is part of our being, and it just has to be tapped into, it's not a mystery, it's part of us.  It's not just for balancing a checkbook, it's for things like breathing and heartbeat and walking and running.  Once we were tutoring a student and she didn't appreciate the 'invention' of negative numbers.  'Who thought of that?' she said.  We explained no one thought of it, it just exists.  Knowing she is a swimmer, we explained (-4) is the same thing at '4 feet deep', ithe 'negative' just tells you the direction, and withouth 'negative' numbers, she wouldn't be able to swim!  She began to 'see' math, and tap into it, realizing her brain and body do so much math in just raising her toothbrush to her mouth and getting it right to her teeth exactly, and that she's so good at it she does it in her sleep!  And once when working with a high school football player he said he didn't need math, that he was told he just needs it to balance his massive future checkbook and he'll just hire an accountant for that.  We talked and asked him his position, and I think he was the something on the Line, so we asked what his job was, and he said to keep the quarterback safe and keep him from getting negative yardage.  Wait, negative yardage?  That's MATH!  Heck you run around with a big math number on your back, play 4 quarters, got 4 downs to get 10 yards, time constraints, half time (fractions), 3rd quarter, 1st and ten!  You couldn't even play football without numbers because it wouldn't exist!  That was such a beautiful moment, you could see everything change from resistance to acceptance awe.  From then on he felt like math was 'his'.  We are all looking for purpose and ownership and we want what wants us.  Math is for everyone because we are math.  Beautiful in form because everything works in timing.  So I said all that to say, let us all nurture the young people in our lives to stay involved with math classes and embrace them, and help them find their personal connection with what they love and enjoy and how math is a part of that so they will make the choice to embody it and make it a canvas for their success.  We must do this!

So what else can we learn?  What other truths are locked inside the being of a young person yearning to be released?  Perhaps more studies that demonstrate how what we eat affects how we look?  Maybe the discovery of more beauty ingredients & colors that give way to more plant extracts for healthier disease-free living for everyone?  What about more clean energy sources for manufacturing and distribution for a multitude of industries including beauty and health?

And what about our globe?  What else can we do to preserve and enrich our soil?  Future generations need good ground for food.  It's exciting and necessary and joyous work.  To improve beauty.  To assure quality of life.

That's an Engineer's aim in whatever field, to improve the quality of life of mankind.  The 'beauty' engineers just do theirs with lipstick.

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