By Jonathan Lazatin
This week, I got a chance to have some wonderful conversations with a few of our University of Nevada, Las Vegas & College of Southern Nevada Battery Workforce Challenge team members. Often, my interaction with the team has been through facilitating the week’s meeting agenda, answering questions about deliverable materials, or getting team members in contact with potential sponsors or vendors for parts to be procured.
However, after talking to fellow teammates Yessenia Henriquez, Osjah Ragin and Farah Zahiyah, something I’m interested in putting more effort towards is creating opportunities to build a sense of community within our team – both with competition-focused activities as well as building pathways for mentorships, projects and connections outside of the BattChallenge. Below are snippets of our conversations.
Blending interests to build a future
Henriquez is a junior at UNLV studying entertainment engineering and design. She joined the Battery Workforce Challenge team to broaden her experience in the engineering field, seeking a project that was different than what she typically does within her program.
Henriquez grew up with a passion for the arts. Throughout middle and high school, she was eager to go into graphic design. Ever seeking a new adventure, Henriquez found UNLV’s Entertainment Engineering and Design program, which blended her interest in art and design with a field she knew less about, engineering.
“I don’t really have a background in doing anything electrical, and I have a very little background in programming and data analysis, so that really drew me to the program,” Henriquez said.
When it comes to her involvement in STEM, Henriquez says what’s important to her is to have a sense of community.
“Just knowing other people with similar backgrounds that (I) can relate with (is huge),” Henriquez said. “I was not really raised towards being STEM oriented. My parents were not really like, ‘Yeah! Be a STEM kid.’ They just wanted me to go to college.”
In the future, Henriquez hopes to continue working in a field that blends her love of art and interests in engineering to build and design like being an engineer for Cirque Du Soleil.
Finding STEM mentors
Ragin hails from Fort Valley, Ga.. She’s working on a master’s in mechanical engineering from UNLV and holds a bachelor’s in mathematics.
Ragin’s introduction to STEM came from her aunt who works for a program in her hometown called M-SEA, Mathematics, Science and Engineering Academy, at Fort Valley State University. Even as a kid, Ragin loved making things.
“I had some old shoe boxes and remembered thinking, ‘I don’t have anywhere for these shoes to go,’ so I used the cardboard and a lot of hot glue to build a shoe wall” Ragin said. “As a child I didn’t really think much of it. My mom and dad would just watch me do these things, like playing with my K’nex kits, and my mom would say, ‘Osjah, you know this is engineering! You might want to look into that.’”
During her senior year of M-SEA, Ragin remembered traveling to engineering companies all over Texas. At one site visit, she listened to a woman talk about her job as a mechanical engineer. Ragin remembered how the woman lit up talking about what she does for work and she thought, “I think this might be what I want to do.”
Mentorship has played a big role in shaping the direction of her education. First, with Ragin’s aunt at the M-SEA program, then in college a company she interned for had a Diversity and Inclusion office that matched her with a mentor.
“With her help, I did really well with the summer internship, and they gave me an extension to December, so I stayed for half a year,” Ragin said.
Even now, Ragin calls her all the time and her mentor texts her to see where she’s at now,
“She (her mentor) knows being here is different for me,” Ragin said. “Coming from an HBCU (Historically Black College or University) in my hometown where I live 7 minutes down the street from school to Vegas, where it’s like a big adjustment.”
Ragin is currently part of our Vehicle Systems and Integration team, where she’s learning computer-aided design to help with the battery pack design. In the future, she hopes to work with a company, like the one she interned with, in the energy sector.
Stepping Out of Your Comfort Zone
Zahiyah is a second-year UNLV undergrad pursuing a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering. She moved from Indonesia to Las Vegas when she was 17, and originally planned to pursue biological sciences on a pre-med path; however as she grew, her interest in math and physics blossomed, and she realized that mechanical engineering was a better fit.
Zahiyah’s mom played a key role in helping her choose UNLV.
“My mom is a teacher, and she told me, ’Coming to UNLV would be good for you, especially because it’s an R1 research institution and your passion is in STEM,’ and our house is really close to UNLV.”
One aspect Zahiyah mentioned that‘s different between studying in Indonesia and UNLV is the culture of communication while working with peers.
“(In Indonesia), when we work on things together, we introduce ourselves to each other and talk about things before (facing) the problem,” Zahiyah said. “However here (at UNLV), when I try to talk to someone or ask a question, they usually just answer me without saying their name or asking where I’m from or just having more conversations beyond just the work in front of them.”
“In Indonesia,” Zahiyah added, “we talk about a lot of things besides the problems so we know each other, and get closer easier than here.“
“It’s hard, especially in STEM here,” Zahiyah said. “I’m a mechanical engineering major. There’s not a lot of girls in one class, (so) it’s hard, but it’s better to try to talk to someone instead of just being quiet. I kind of force myself to step out of my comfort zone, which is honing my communication and speaking skills, too.”
Zahiyah is also part of the Vehicle Systems and Integration team, hoping to gain technical skills to help support her mechanical engineering studies, and to network with others with similar interests.
Helping Build a Better Team
After having these conversations, I hope to use these stories and the lessons learned from them to inform how to make the team a better community for its members. I plan to build in opportunities to tie in the interests of others beyond engineering, leverage the various levels of experience to create mentor relationships and to create space for folks to step out of their comfort zones by being more intentional with learning about one another beyond the work in front of us. Overall, the goal is to use the BattChallenge competition as a way to build team structures that dismantle barriers and create access and pathways to STEM.
If you’re interested in joining or learning more about the UNLV & CSN Battery Workforce Challenge team, let us know by sending an email to battchallenge@unlv.edu.
