Karen wants to see more women study STEM subjects
Former Marketing Manager, Karen Jin, enters a career in tech with Yoobee.
A Yoobee and Datacom Women in Tech Scholarship recipient is calling on educators to encourage more women into STEM subjects.
Karen Jin was an Account Manager at a marketing agency when COVID-19 hit – sparking a career rethink.
The 34-year-old has always loved technology, so when she heard about Aotearoa’s skills shortages across the sector, she enrolled in the Bachelor of Software Engineering programme at the Yoobee College of Creative Innovation.
Securing a Women in Tech Scholarship allowed Karen to fast-track her dream career.
“My sister, who used to study at Yoobee, told me about the scholarship opportunity. I’m so grateful to have been granted a spot following my expression of interest to the admission panel.”
Now a third-year student, Karen wants to see more women break free of societal career expectations and follow in her footsteps.
“I think girls and boys are greatly influenced by their peers, parents and teachers when it comes to deciding what to study.”
Karen believes more could be done to encourage more women into the industry.
“It all starts with education. I think if educators encouraged girls throughout primary school and high school to explore STEM subjects, we would see huge growth in the number of women working in the industry.”
Karen is currently working as a data and analytics intern at Datacom Cloud. She has her eyes set on becoming an AI engineer.
“I love data and would like to use Machine Learning to develop applications that can help businesses make better decisions.”
