>>TAMARA: I came from California
and I went to a fairly small private school.
It wasn't very large class size,
and so coming to a big university was pretty daunting
[laughs] at the time.
My name is Tamara Chism.
I went to University of Michigan, graduated in 2010,
started there in 2005 as a freshman.
And then I took off a semester to work, actually,
at my company that I'm now working at now.
[flowing music]
It was originally called Soil and Material Engineers,
but then they kind of just shortened it. [laughs]
Now it's just SME.
And then, basically, we do third-party testing.
We're onsite during construction phase
of a project and we make sure that everything is built
per the project specifications and drawings.
>>JORDAN: In what you currently do,
what do you find most exciting about the job?
>>TAMARA: So, I started my career mainly in the field.
Like I mentioned, we're usually on construction sites,
hardhat, work boots, like that [laughs] jacket
I have on in the background, you know, bright neon.
And I've transitioned in the last year,
just a little over a year,
to project management.
Primarily I'm in the office now,
but I manage our field,
some of our field staff on certain projects
that I'm managing.
So I kind of get a different aspect.
So I feel like I'm doing a lot more training,
kind of like giving feedback
to our staff on their different reports,
or their deliverables,
or whatever we might give to our clients.
And then I'm also dealing a lot more
with budgeting and trying to keep the client happy, [laughs]
kind of in that sense.
There's always some news you might have
to give to the clients.
It's like, "Hey, we found this buried thing,"
or, "There's a bunch of water in this soil,
that we didn't know," or whatever.
Just having to have these tough conversations,
I think, with clients to say,
"Hey, this is gonna cost you more money,"
or, "What you wanted to build needs to be modified,"
which might push schedule or something.
So it's just having those difficult conversations,
I think is the most challenging.
I just like interacting with people, honestly.
Like you just meet so many different people,
even if you're in the office and dealing with clients,
you're still building these relationships,
and I think you kind of learn perspectives on things, too.
[soft music]
I was given the opportunity to, ironically,
kind of manage a lot of our U of M projects.
The University of Michigan is one of our clients.
I don't know,
you've probably been seeing in the last four years
of you living on campus,
South University looks completely different. [laughs]
>>JORDAN: I did. [laughs]
>>TAMARA: So much has changed in that city.
They're constantly building.
So from a construction perspective,
which is kind of why I like civil and stuff like that,
just the fact that you can see
what you've been working on,
or I can walk by and I'm like,
"Hey, I worked on that building."
Or like, "Hey, I'm helping to make this campus look better,"
especially with the dorm renovations.
I lived in MoJo for a while,
and that was like the last year before the renovation,
and now it's super beautiful,
and there's all these like high tech medias.
And it's kind of cool to see that developed.
[gentle music]
>>JORDAN: Since we're on the topic of college.
Can you talk about just like,
I guess, some memories or highlights
of your experience while at Michigan?
>>TAMARA: Whoa, man, there's so many. [laughs]
For me, I mean, the engineering obviously takes up
a lot of time.
So I did spend a lot of time studying.
You couldn't not,
or else you'd fail, right? [laughs]
I did tend to focus myself more
on multicultural groups,
just 'cause that seemed like where I fit in.
So I did SHPE, a member of Lambda Theta Alpha,
so that's a Latina sorority.
And just having that support group was huge for me.
And that's what I miss the most, I guess.
Not to say I don't have it
in my real life, normal life,
but I mean, you don't have it the same as you do in college.
So I was really fortunate to find groups like that,
to connect with, and feel at home.
>>JORDAN: You know coming in, both from California,
so being out of state, and also being Latina,
how was that coming
into the engineering space where there's not necessarily
a lot of faces or people like you?
>>TAMARA: You know, coming to Michigan,
which isn't as diverse, as we know,
it was definitely a little bit of a culture shock,
but I think I was happy to see that there was
some multicultural groups
that are already established on campus.
So I think that made it way easier.
I thought, like I really liked being a part
of SHPE when I was, in terms of seeing like,
'cause that was also, I mean,
it's not like it's exclusive
to just Latino students, obviously,
but we'd collaborate with NSBE and stuff like that.
The National Society of Black Engineers, right?
>>JORDAN: Yep.
>>TAMARA: It's kind of the reality of our industry in a sense.
You don't see as much diversity in STEM programs
as you might like to, but it was nice to have
that support system and seeing,
at least seeing people succeed when I was there at Michigan.
[upbeat digital music]
>>JORDAN: What advice would you provide students right now,
how to make the most of it when there?
>>TAMARA: Sure, I think that anything that you can do to like,
I guess, not just sit.
I mean, this sounds really old of me.
Just not sit in front of a screen all day,
taking a chance to try things that may be a little bit
out of your comfort zone or maybe you're like,
"Ah, I don't know if I'll like it,"
but I think that's important, in general,
for high school students and current college students.
And I think it's easier in college
'cause there's so many opportunities.
Get out in the world, look at stuff,
go interact with people,
try to find things maybe within your community
you can do, like even community outreach
kind of stuff where you're,
like Habitat For Humanity or something.
You're building a house or something,
you know, like this real life,
hands-on experience for me is huge.
You're gonna learn plenty in your books.
You're gonna spend plenty of hours in the classroom,
plenty of hours on homework.
You're gonna get that,
so don't worry about that, right? [laughs]
Do things that's going to develop you
in different ways, I guess,
to make you a more well-rounded person.
So just finding your passion, I think,
in the end is super important.
>>JORDAN: Thank you so much for taking the time
and sharing all your advice and a little bit about yourself.
It's been really good and interesting.
>>TAMARA: Good, I'm glad I wasn't boring. [laughs]
[Jordan laughing] [mellow music]