We recently connected with Susan Martinez and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Susan, we’re so appreciative of you taking the time to share your nuggets of wisdom with our community. One of the topics we think is most important for folks looking to level up their lives is building up their self-confidence and self-esteem. Can you share how you developed your confidence?
My confidence and self esteem is still ever growing. I can honestly tell you that I am a completely different person in terms of confidence/self esteem than just 1 year ago. Every day it’s growing, my confidence in my work and my platform. My platform has helped me build my confidence by allowing me a space to be myself without the burden of “an engineer SHOULDN’T do those things”, making my account about fashion AND engineering has helped my confidence build as I help other build theirs as well!
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
My IG page, @AdAstraSu, has helped me be a confident woman in STEM while helping other women in STEM realize they have a place here. I am hopefully providing a role model and space for other women to feel fashionable and confident in not only their style but their engineering skills and abilities. I love working with non-profits, organizations, doing educational outreach, and STEM programs to help them reach as many women in STEM as possible. I will speaking at Space Con in Paris, and working with Reinvented for the Space Gala this year in November, and have the honor of working with various groups in Mexico for World Space Week, and with Katya Echazarreta’s Space Foundation for this year and many years to come!
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
3 skills/qualities I would recommend to any young person or young women pursuing STEM would be:
1) You are more capable than you think, imposter syndrome can sometimes overwhelm you, it still does to me! You just need to take a breather, and remember you are so capable, or you wouldn’t have made it as far as you have!
2) We need YOU, only you can solve problems the way you do, and that’s why we need you, not whoever everyone else thinks you should be.
3) Internships are more important than perfect grades. I’m not saying grades aren’t important BUT getting that internship, taking a semester off for a co-op, rather than having a 4.0, is way more important. It will get you so much farther.
Looking back over the past 12 months or so, what do you think has been your biggest area of improvement or growth?
I can say confidently and 100% assurance, my biggest improvement over the last 12 months has been, my confidence in my own engineering ability. I switch jobs in the last year, I went from feeling like I couldn’t contribute to a team no matter how hard I tried, to taking on way more responsibility in becoming a lead at a new company. The difference really has been the support that I received from my company and my peers, and just the ability to know that what I am saying is received well and also trusted. Them having that, trusting me has helped me build my confidence, and now I am confident in engineering abilities, and my technical judgment.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.etsy.com/shop/AdAstraSu
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/adastrasu?igshid=OGQ5ZDc2ODk2ZA==
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/susan-barber-martinez525?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app
Image Credits
Gus Martinez
