Team member spotlight with graduate engineer Diviya Chhagan
Did you know that only around 14% of engineers here in New Zealand are women? Last Sunday was International Women in Engineering Day – a day that marks the importance of continuing to raise the profile of women within the field of engineering and also awareness of engineering as a career. It was a timely opportunity for us to catch up with Diviya Chhagan, a current graduate engineer here at Vector, and hear about her experiences so far, of studying and now working with us, over the last 18 months.
When did you decide to get into engineering and why were you attracted to the career?
I honestly had no idea what I wanted to do after high school, but knew maths was the only subject that kept me curious. Even throughout my electrical engineering degree I was still unsure what it meant to be an engineer, or If I really did want to be an engineer. All I believed was that surely being such a broad field, I’d find at least one area I’d absolutely love. In my final year, I took a power systems course and it was the first course I truly loved and piqued my curiosity.
From then on, I knew I really wanted to keep learning more about power systems but it wasn’t until I had a good few months of experience working at Vector that I learnt how much I loved the career path I had chosen. Every day I learn something new, and I’m extremely excited and happy to be in this space.
What attracted you to Vector?
I didn’t really know what the role of an engineer would entail or much about the industry. During my degree, I knew I loved learning about power systems, so I knew that was the industry I wanted to learn in. After learning more about the whole electricity infrastructure, I knew I wanted to experience the distribution level first.
While around half the world’s population is female only around 14%* of women make up the global engineering workforce. How did you find studying at university and now working in a very much male-dominated field?
That makes me feel really special. During university I did feel the imbalance quite heavily, but there were also other factors involved including different personalities, background and different levels of passion and engagement for engineering. I also know that the perception I held of the industry being male dominated was heavily based on the fact that all my lecturers were male. So, with all these at play, I struggled to fit in a bit and wasn’t sure if it’d be any different after university.
But I’ve found that working at Vector is very different to what I thought the industry would look like throughout university. Vector has a really good overall mix of genders. I don’t feel as if I’m disadvantaged by working within a male-dominated industry. I feel that everyone is super supportive and rooting for each other.
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Why do you think there’s currently so few women getting into engineering?
I believe the shortfall issues are due to lack of exposure of the industry. To encourage more women in engineering, I think it’s hugely important to display to them that although the industry may still be male-dominated, it is extremely inclusive and supportive of growth and development.
I do believe that the number of students in engineering will increase purely due to the fact that more people are learning about what the role of an engineer is, a lot earlier than they were previously, like myself. In school, I had no understanding of how the industry really worked and what the work entailed.
What do you think can be done to encourage more people to study and enter the field of engineering?
In my opinion, the best thing that can be done to help students who are trying to figure out what their future career path might look like, is to hear from others within the industry; hearing about their experience, what they learn and what makes them excited about their work. At least that’s what I wish I had had more exposure to.
Overall, I feel that having more access to people who can share what it’s really like to be an engineer and what the day-to-day work looks like will help to increase the number of people who become interested in the field and ultimately go on to become engineers.
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