My Life as a Female Engineer 1

It is often not what someone says or does, rather a look you receive, a feeling in the span of a few seconds, that will be not respectful. When the young hopeful and arrogant undergraduate summer intern, originally from a country where majority of women are still submissive and second class citizens, from a prestigious school arrives and is introduced to you, a young petite female with a weird name, as his mentor and supervisor, and you see a disappointing look; one that does not trust your knowledge, capabilities, or that you could teach him anything. When day after day, you give him guidance on his assignment, check on him if he has any questions, and you get a simple nod that everything is ok, with a face that says "how could you help anyways". You give him some time to adjust and explore the problem. You are aware that he is not making any progress, and you know he has too much pride to come to you. Yet, you give him the chance by showing up at his desk every few days, to give him the opportunity, "Do you have any questions?", "How did you handle such and such part?", "Here are some good references by the way on this problem". Nods, oks, do not bother me and take my time looks are all you receive.

Till one fine day, he comes to you with a desperate look "there is a bug I have not been able to fix", and you know he has been struggling with it for a long time and has not been able to make any progress, and he had no other choice but to let you know. You go, take a look at his code, locate the lines the compiler is complaing about, and in a minute you see the problem. "You see this line where you declared ... how do you think the compiler interprets this?",..., pause, thinking, responses from him, " and you see how you are using it later here?", a light bulb turns on in his brain and you see his whole face shining. "Did you mean that?", I ask him. No, we both know. He fixes that line, compiles, runs, get the desired outcome, and for the first time you hear him say "Thank you", a heart felt one too, and the look on his face when looking at you is never like before anymore.

You keep going, one day at a time, one brain at a time. So many things have to be earned.