Courtesy of the website of Eastvale STEM

—ORIGINALLY WRITTEN Feb. 14, 2017 during the afternoon—

Are you interested in pursuing a career in electrical engineering? Or just wondering what type of careers are out there for you to pursue?

If you said yes, you’re in luck. The STEM academy program here at Eleanor Roosevelt High School is proud to have another guest speaker, Robin P. Fisher of electrical engineering, as part of a series of speakers that are giving speeches to students about certain career paths in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

Fisher is one of the few African American women to work in her field, which is dominated by males. Her work experience at General Electric, Hewlett Packard, and currently at Nidec Motot Cororation as well as her credentials received from Purdue University makes her a must-see for those curious about her field.

She will be speaking on Wednesday, February 15, from 7:45 a.m to 8:45 a.m in the Mustang Theatre, which is convenient given that Wednesday is a late start day for students. The event is open to anyone!

So come visit her for a useful and beneficial presentation with a professional! It just might get you to plan ahead in your future.

—UPDATED Feb. 15, 2017 in the evening—

Here’s what you missed when STEM guest speaker Robin P. Fisher gave several ERHS students an engaging and interesting presentation about going into the field of electrical engineering, and engineering in general for that matter, on Wednesday of Feb. 15 in the morning.

Fisher – with a playful and light humorous personality – very much communicated with her audience of young high school students by first talking about her credentials, being a graduate of Purdue University in Chicago and having worked at large corporations such as General Electric, or GE, and her current job at a Tokyo company by the name of the Nidec Motor Corporation.

After going over the basic meaning of what the word STEM means, Fisher then proceeded to talk about what types of fields there are in engineering and defined what an electrical engineer, her field,  does: “design, develop and supervise manufacturing of electrical equipment.” This would include electric motors, radars, navigation systems, and communication systems. It is people like her that are responsible for building small motors used to power cellphones.

“Motors are everywhere, and I’m not talking about the engines in your car,” she says.

But for Fisher, she works in sales for electrical engineering, meaning that she is tasked with getting in touch with fellow engineers to try to sell a product manufactured by engineers.

She highlighted the minimum high school requirements to pursue electrical engineering. You must have 8 semesters of math classes, 3 years of lab science (1 year must be in chemistry), 4 years of English, 2 years of a foreign language class, and 3 years of history. Fisher also emphasized the importance of getting involved with extracurricular since getting into college, in her view, is much more harder if you can’t stand out.

But the most important characteristics Fisher believes are necessary to have when pursuing electrical engineering are tenacity and determination, two things that were vital in Fisher’s life, when she wanted to be an engineer. It was not easy to see it though, Fisher admits, and she even wanted to quit at one point and almost lost track of her career path from too much partying. Luckily, she manage to pull herself together to get back on the right track.

“With hard work, you would later be rewarded.”

Critical thinking is another good skill to have, with such being the case when a student from the audience was handed a Subway gift-card by Fisher after that student successfully deduced what was significant about the years Fisher spent in her path in electrical engineering.

Once one gets to college to pursue electrical engineering, Fisher told her audience on what type of classes they should attend, specifically engineering courses high in math, but also the general Ed classes, including English, because according to Fisher, it is important to know how to communicate, especially when it comes to talking with consumers about buying a electrical engineering product. She was part of internships, which allowed her to get some experience in her field.

As a manager in her field, Fisher has reaped the benefits of her job, making 6 figures – more than $100,000 – a year on average, having job security, financial stability, being able to solve problems in our society, and overcoming stereotypes of engineering – she is one of the few African Americans to be in the electrical engineering field and despite facing prejudice sexism, she is able to overcome them because of her devotion to her job, and doing something she loves to do.

On her final thoughts to those in attendance, she offers suggestions for taking the next step in planning out the future, considering the upcoming construction of the STEM Academy here, which she wishes she had when she was a kid. Fisher urged her crowd to continue to seeing presentations like hers to find out what interests them and to take part in the math and science clubs available on school campus. Asking questions and attending STEM summer camps are two other things to do as well because in her words, “it’s your future.”

With that, the crowd applauded.