This summer I interned at a small, corporate/private jet management and operations company in the Tri-state area. I learned valuable lessons—from technical skills to professional skills—but more importantly, I gained something that cannot be taught but must be discovered.
I am used to being the minority in terms of gender. Being very interested in math and science at a young age resulted in me pursuing a degree in aerospace engineering at my college, where I would focus on learning as much as I could about a subject I was truly passionate about. I was not alone in this endeavor, my year included about 60 others at the start. This was average. Unfortunately, the average also was that only 10% or less of those students would be women—meaning only 6 women started my journey with me. It is predicted that many of those original students will switch majors at some point in their collegiate career, with about 50% of the original 10% of women leaving.
In pursuit of my degree, it was normal to deal with men who did not understand or want to understand this point of view. For example: it may be discouraging to look around a room, see no other women, feel like your opinion is irrelevant and will be criticized more harshly.
However, this could not prepare me for my summer internship. I should say that this internship was overall a wonderful learning experience and the opportunity gave me insight into what kind of work I could be dealing with somewhere down the line, as well as developing contacts. But, there was a blatant lack of women. From weekly meetings with higher executives where I would be the only female in the room of 10+ men, to even filing over 200 pilots and not seeing a single woman on that list.
Even if there was a female pilot, and I had spoken to some throughout my time, they told horror stories of past jobs where they had gotten fired for silly reasons or the way that men would react to the women. Women would constantly be harassed by maintenance men as they boarded their plane despite being in a respectable position already tackling stereotypes as it is.
One woman told me how she would continuously get called a flight attendant despite her efforts to correct men, because she was actually a trained and licensed pilot with many type ratings. They either didn’t believe her, or were poking fun at it. Another woman told a story of getting fired from her job after getting pregnant without any prior notice from the company. However, another man broke his ankle and needed the same recovery time, he was allotted that time without any issues. When she went to fight it in court, her own lawyer told her it wasn’t worth it as she would get nothing back.
It is even in the little things that make tackling the aviation industry so tough for a woman. Walking down the hallways to see such a rare occurrence of someone similar to you or the little ways other men seem to discard your opinion. I am a naturally quiet person, not wanting to really bother anyone, but because of my initial hesitation with my coworkers, it was as if I was shunned by many of them—while my male counterpart began at the same way with a very different outcome. He got all the jobs that required any type of intelligence and special treatment in terms of him working in areas he specifically wanted to. I was treated as an assistant who worked on a pre-audit for weeks, yet I am in the middle of pursuing a degree in engineering.
While these stories may seem discouraging and as if I have given up, this summer internship taught me that I must do just the opposite. These women continued to fight in the aviation industry even despite their hard times and were able to pass down what they’ve experienced to me, and that is inspiration to continue on, even if it is hard and sometimes unrelenting.
These women are strong and have worked for everything they have today. I hope to be similar someday. And although this internship has also taught me that although private aviation may not be the field for me (and that I hate 9-5s), it taught me something I didn’t expect; that sometimes inspiration comes from people and places you may never expect and that it is there for a reason.
Every time you are brought down, you can rise back up to the challenge. And that’s what being a woman in aviation/science is all about. That’s what being a woman is all about. I am beyond proud of all my colleagues and am excited to see where the future inevitably takes them.
