Humans of the Islands- Joyana Finch
Joyana Finch (nee Meyer)
Mechatronic Engineer
Former Miss South Pacific & Miss Cook Islands
Cook Islands
What do you love about doing what you do?
Thats a hard question. There's so much to enjoy in this job. Yes I enjoy the travelling, working with new people and a whole lot of other work perks but my love for this role has nothing to do with that. What I love about being an Engineer is the opportunity to solve problems. I imagine that many would hear that and their eyes would glaze over but when I think about it .... being able to attack problems systematically and methodically with logic (aaaand a boat load of patience) gives me a sense of .... freedom.
When you understand more and more about how the things that make up your world work, how you can fix them, how you can modify them to do your bidding, or better yet, how to build something of your own imagining ... then the world truly is your oyster right?!
I'm so fortunate to have been hired by a company who takes advantage of this aspect. They haven't hesitated throwing me in the deep end on numerous occasions, often having to sit down and decipher multiple manuals in whatever language, modify a program that isnt mine or try and fix/install a system that I had never seen before. Lucky for me, Logic is a universal language.
If you love puzzles & you love to learn ... trust me, you'll love being an engineer.
Tell us about life being a former Beauty Queen and a female Engineer?
Lets just get this out there ... Being a female full stop raises eyebrows in the Engineering department.
Being an island female, raises the eyebrows a little higher.
But being a former Pacific Island Beauty Queen, female Mechatronic Engineer just about launches those eyebrows into bloomin' space haha (Not quite, but you get my drift).
Im not going to lie, being a Beauty Queen Engineer is a very unique experience. An experience I feel can be adequately described by my time at uni. Coming straight from Rarotonga to study Engineering at the University of Auckland, I had not yet learned how rare Engineering women were. I was blessed with parents who encouraged my interests in Maths and Science and my teachers followed suit, so i thought nothing of it - that was until my first day at uni. Naive as anything, I rocked up to the Engineering building, strand of pearls on my neck, a colorful pareu as a scarf and a red hibiscus (the size of my face) in my hair bun - you know, cos I wanted to look manea when I made new friends!
That morning, the receptionist asked if I was lost and pointed me in the direction of the Arts Faculty. Then after a diagnostic calculus test, the lecturer actually took me aside and asked if I'd consider moving to an easier course. I guess the island get up didnt help, but I did realize that I would have to work harder than most students in my class to earn my place there. Anyways, it was not a good day and things stayed that way for the first few months.
Having people find out that I was a past Beauty Queen was also a sensitive matter as I was already concerned about not being picked for a team project because I simply didnt "look" smart enough. I was worried the fact that I was a past pageant winner would make matters worse. That period of my life put me in a weird place between wanting to earn the respect of my peers/teachers and wanting to relax as the loud and proud islander I am.
Its funny, these feelings were a first for me. It was the first time I was unsure/uncomfortable about who I was. I had never been confronted with those feelings growing up in Raro. All I knew, was that I liked Maths and Science and I wanted to learn how to build gadgets. That was a give in.
Of course as the years went by, we had all earned each others respect in various tests and exams and I made some life long friends, (had to beat their test scores a few times first though haha) and once the walls were down, people delighted in the fact that I used to work the catwalk.
If I could go back and send a message to my conflicted self back then, I would've told myself to keep wearing that hibiscus and not take everyone (including myself) so seriously. You cant help people's preconceptions and you shouldnt hold it against them. Just do your thing and enjoy. The Engineering content is all the same!
What exactly do you do as an engineer and how challenging is it?
I have only just recently been made a SCADA Engineer at my company.
SCADA stands for Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition. That is basically a fancy shmancy way of calling a graphical user interface (GUI) that allows a client to interact with a plant/factory in real time.
This role involves working very closely with LLC Engineers and a lot of writing script. Scripting is fun. It was my favorite subject at Uni. In my opinion 'scripting basics' should be taught at Primary School level. Especially in this rapidly-intensifying technological world we live in.
As a SCADA Engineer you get more face time with clients as they often have their own desired custom functionalities and I have to figure out how to make that happen. On the down side if things stop working for whatever reason, SCADA is the most visual point in the system so the SCADA engineer is right in the firing line.
Prior to SCADA I was a Low Level Controls (LLC) Engineer. I had to deal with the design and functionality of the physical system itself. The program uses little (but powerful) computers to control things like motors, pumps & doors etc. PLC programming is very different from writing script but logic is still employed. LLC Engineers also plan the networks that will accommodate a myriad of sensors in the plant as well as produce all the required power calculations.
The great thing about being an LLC engineer was that you could feel and touch your work. Unlike scripting in SCADA where your work is purely virtual - Still incredibly stimulating though!
The work is plenty challenging and thats a good thing! I do feel like its not as hard as most people make it out to be, the hardest part really is to honestly want to learn and have the patience to do so. Like I said before, if you have an affinity for order, systems and methods... then you'll fit right in.
How unique is this for a Pacific woman - how many other Pacific female engineers work in this field that you know of?
The number of women in Engineering are growing all the time and the percentage of island women in Engineering grows too. These days there are so many Engineering support groups to join. Lots of them are dedicated to women only and there are also some dedicated to Pacific Islanders.
In my field however, Mechatronic Engineering, there is next to none. I was the only Pacific Island Woman in my year. In fact, upon graduation, the University of Auckland informed me that I was the very first woman of Pacific Island descent in history to graduate in Mechatronic Engineering! THAT is how unique it is!
How proud are you to be working in a non traditional field for women?
Honestly, it is only really obvious when first meeting people in the field but the more experience I get, the more I forget that I am a woman and this is a mans field. It takes someone else on the outside to remind me. Mind you, I am currently working in Shiga, Japan and it has been an extraordinary experience dealing with men in a different culture.
These men have never seen or even conceptualized a female Engineer before. When I first showed up on site, they didnt know what to call me or even where to look when they did. They were super confused when I started giving them instructions. Some of them pointed and laughed.
Yes, its all very entertaining at the moment, but besides situations like my current one, I truly forget that I am in any way different to my colleagues. We bounce ideas of each other. We approach each other for advice. We stress together. We celebrate together. It's a very enjoyable work environment.
Maybe I am blessed with very laid back men as my workmates, but I have a suspicion that it is like this in most work places.
Am I proud to be a woman in a mans job? Sure. But I am mostly proud of being an Engineer fullstop.
A mechatronic Engineer :)
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