Nancy Andia shared her passion for her chosen field through Society of Hispanic Engineers at Rutgers
Nancy Andia had three corporate job offers once she finished her studies mid-year.
Three topflight corporations came courting when Nancy Andia received her bachelor of science degree from the Rutgers School of Engineering last December: Lockheed Martin, Verizon Wireless and Johnson & Johnson.
“What I was looking for was a company that would expose me to a technical area as well as the business area, because I wanted to learn more about the business side and how to apply my technical skills to it,” recalled the computer and electrical engineering major.
So Andia went with the offer from Johnson & Johnson, a choice that led to her participation in ITLDP, the company’s Information Technology Leadership Development Program. Now she’s immersed in the growing field of mobility engineering: testing new applications on cell phones, tablets and other platforms for the company’s employees.
It’s a team effort, an aspect of the job that comes naturally to the longtime Paterson resident who as an undergraduate became active in the Society of Hispanic Engineers (SHE), first lending a hand with the organization’s outreach to high school students and later overseeing its budget as treasurer and organizing a career fair as external vice president.
SHE is the Rutgers student chapter of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, a national organization devoted to serving as role models to the greater Hispanic community. Seven Hispanic engineering students founded the university’s group in 1984.
By far, the most gratifying aspect of Andia’s campus volunteerism was engaging the next generation of engineers, she says, including mentoring Rutgers first- and second-year women studying science.
Working through SHE’s high school enrichment program, Andia and fellow members also hosted 30 to 40 high school youths at an intensive three-day program showcasing the wide range of opportunities in the engineering world and exposing participants to the college atmosphere.
“Many of the kids who participate come from populations that don’t know what engineers do and what jobs you can have, so we teach them about engineering,” she says. The goal is to increase the number of students who come to Rutgers to pursue engineering majors.
At one session that stands out in Andia’s mind, a high school junior peppered her with questions: How to approach the SAT tests, what courses to take for computer engineering, and the like. The young woman kept in touch afterwards, which delights Andia on several levels.
“She told me she saw me as an inspiration because I was one of the few females in computer engineering,” Andia says, noting that women have been traditionally under-represented in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and math). Her mentee went on to apply to several schools – including Rutgers – and is pursuing a career in the field.
Andia herself came to Rutgers as a result of a similar SHE outreach effort years earlier.
As a junior at John F. Kennedy in Paterson and its STEM Academy, she was invited to participate in the program. “I didn’t know what SHE was at the time,” she recalls. “That’s how I learned about the different areas of engineering and the engineering program here at Rutgers.”
Andia comes naturally to her love of all things both engineering and business – you might say it’s hardwired into her DNA. The daughter of an industrial engineer mom and an economist dad, she immigrated here from Peru at the age of 12; her parents were searching for broader opportunities for Nancy and younger sister Carolyn.
“The problem [in Peru] now is that you can get an education, you can go to college, but once you graduate there aren’t many open positions. That’s why they always wanted to come here – because they knew here you can have anything you put your mind to,” Andia says.
For Andia, putting her mind to it involved internships at Lockheed Martin, Travelers Insurance and Johnson and Johnson, all focused on some aspect of information technology or computer engineering.
It also involved devising and executing her senior design project: a small airplane, similar to a drone, which was fully equipped to fly by itself. Andia and her team designed the plane, wrote a software program giving it directions, and installed a camera on the device to record the entire flight to simulate security features a government-produced drone would have.
Today, as Andia prepares to walk with her class in the 2013 commencement, the honors graduate has the pleasure of knowing that her family will continue to be well represented at the university.
Carolyn Andia is just one year behind her, pursuing a career in mechanical and aerospace engineering and already making a name for herself with a scholarship and an internship from Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation, best known for helicopter design and production.
Meanwhile, Nancy Andia attributes her success to her family, the Rutgers Office of Student Development (OSD) and the Society of Hispanic Engineers. “My family gave me the support necessary to succeed and they were always there for me. The OSD and SHE became my family away from home and mentored me to develop professionally. It is because of them that I am here today, and I will forever be grateful.”
Carl Blesch reported and Fredda Sacharow wrote this article.