Top tech disciplines for women looking to kickstart a STEM career
Looking for a career change? Or starting out and trying to work out which field to focus on? Here are the top tech disciplines for women looking to kickstart a STEM career.
Women with undeclared majors are increasingly choosing one of the many rewarding disciplines within STEM. These fields of study centring around (S)cience, (T)echnology, (E)ngineering, and (M)aths are no longer the male-dominated domains they once were.
Today, enrolment rates for women in cyber security courses and even programming classes are now on the rise, as female students seek to make their mark on STEM industries, paving the way for future generations of science-minded superwomen.
As companies strive for more diversity within their ranks while still seeking to fill ever-growing technical requirements, women seeking job satisfaction and security have their pick of a myriad of interesting fields of study. Let’s take a closer look at some niches within STEM where women are currently finding success and career fulfilment.
Cyber security
With each passing day, the internet and all its capabilities continues to take on vital roles in all aspects of modern living, from work and study, to recreational pursuits. Even amenities like our motor vehicles and TV screens now have live internet connections and immense amounts of computer code working in the background, tempting those who seek to do harm by hacking these devices for profit or simply to disrupt your digital services.
Enter the ever-evolving field of cyber security. Cyber security courses prepare students to work in nearly any industry where they can prevent internet crimes (or ‘cyber crimes’) by fixing bugs, designing secure networks, and tracing security breaches back to the perpetrator’s location and device.
Any company doing business online simply requires an investment in cyber security in order to protect their customer’s data and thus, their right to privacy.
Governments, of all sizes, also rely on cyber security professionals to protect highly-sensitive information related to national security, power grids, election systems, and all other systems they rely on in order to maintain operations across the public sector. Women seeking an exciting, ever-challenging and stable career in technology can virtually write their own success story by diving into this exciting niche.
Programming
It goes without saying that if consumers are buying more smart devices and connected products, then modern society needs as many programmers as it can find. Women seeking a lucrative career are increasingly drawn to coding as it can offer the flexible lifestyle many are after in this age of digital transformation.
If you want to work from home as you raise your children, or perhaps do some travelling while you work part-time from the road, then programming is likely to be a highly appealing potential career pathway for you, as it can be done from anywhere.
Those not interested in coding can still find a home in software development in a wealth of other professional positions, ranging from tech entrepreneurship to UI design. Good software quality assurance testers are also always in demand, as are technical writers and networking specialists.
Database administrators
Another rewarding field within the world of ICT, database administration has a strong percentage of women represented within its ranks. These highly-specialised professionals keep organisations moving by configuring and maintaining the software used to store financial, customer and employee data.
If you already have qualifications in cyber security or technology management, you’ll find that making the transition to database administration feels rather natural, as solid security fundamentals go hand in hand with smart database design.
User interface design
Creative-minded women who have a knack for aesthetic design can find a career in the tech sector as a UI Designer. While programmers write back-end code to connect databases, networks, and middleware, user interface designers use specialised tools to create the many templates, windows and pages that make up an application or mobile app.
Much like an artist who uses clay to create new automobile mockups, UI and UX (User Interface) designers graphically build out the many pieces of the complex systems that are the computer and mobile applications that we use on a daily basis. In other words, the focus of UI designers is to make sure that the applications we use are intuitive to use and follow innate design laws to ensure continuity in appearance and functionality.
Technology recruiting
Recruiting is an often overlooked niche in ICT. Like any professional recruiter, an information technology recruiter seeks out potential candidates by reviewing resumes and establishing relationships with new graduates who are hopeful of launching an exciting career.
Recruiters who maintain relationships with students as they progress through their studies are strongly positioned to provide their companies with fresh talent, eager to grow and bring long-term value to their employers.
Female graduates seeking to gain a foothold in the exciting technology sector appreciate having someone in their corner to lean on and ease any fears they might have when making the transition from college life to professional employment. What role could be more personally satisfying than helping young people to either better prepare themselves for further education or even present themselves as candidates for exciting career opportunities?
Get your career in started in the exciting world of STEM
As you can see, there are countless opportunities available to women in the STEM field. Whether you choose to study cyber security, dive into one of the many programming languages to learn, opt to get involved in technology recruiting or take on any other opportunity in the STEM sector that feels right for you, there is undoubtedly space at the table for any and all tech-oriented young women who seek to enter STEM fields with a bang.
Be sure to do your research, have a look at some of the fields that interest you, and start laying your own professional foundations in your new career to start your foray into STEM off on the right foot.
