"I must admit that as a student I had little interest in topics such as gender equality and found the question of what it's like to study aerospace engineering "as a woman" rather annoying over time.
The question itself implied a problem that hardly played a role in my everyday life as a student.
Although there were very few women enrolled in the course, I was not confronted with any prejudice, let alone disadvantages – on the contrary, I was able to participate in a support programme for women in technical professions and in a mentoring programme during my studies.
When I entered my professional life, I quickly noticed that these programmes were available for female students because there is still a lot to be done on the way to achieving equal opportunities for women and men.
In order to improve the situation, it is important for women to pursue their interest in technical professions so that there are more female role models in the future and women support each other.
I think it is important that we women take the opportunity to pursue our professional interests, because, unfortunately, this could not always be taken for granted and many generations of women before us have fought for these rights. In order to make further progress along this path, I would like to encourage women to take up technical professions and use their talents, because together we can achieve more.
I am currently working as a bid manager at Thales Alenia Space and it is great to be part of an aerospace company.
I especially appreciate my colleagues in the aerospace industry who mostly follow their profession out of conviction and with a strong intrinsic motivation.
The aerospace industry can make a major contribution to solving global challenges, and I aim to contribute a small part to this.
What also fascinates me about my profession is that in aerospace industry it is predominantly international project teams that work on a common goal, which makes a sense of European community come alive.
As a valuable experience, I would like to add that an engineering degree can open up a variety of career paths.
The fact that you yourself are constantly developing and changing allows you to pursue different professional interests, to try out new things and even change direction. An engineering degree provides a very good basis for this."