a PhD candidate here in Canterbury, what have you sort of observed over the years in terms of these barriers actually changing? Has there been movement?

Yeah, I think engineering, like there's been a lot of progress and obviously I can't speak too much to the past, but definitely from hearing the stories that my mom has and my experience, they are very different things.

And I think especially in university, there's lots of support in university for that.

And lots of really amazing professors and my peers, like never really encountered anything major issues per se definitely nothing like working in my experience some of the experiences I had working in restaurants engineering is it's like a very traditional like office job professional career right so there's very clear structure in the office and a very clear um I'm almost like different way of interacting right in that kind of career versus something like working in restaurants which I don't want to say more casual because it's still a professional career path and has its own but they're they're distinct in a bit in the way that people interact within those environments and and kind of the day-to-day communications and norms and leadership styles that appear um and it's not all restaurants but some of the restaurants that I had worked in um there's definitely a bit of a boys club mentality in terms of the, yeah, the way that people carried themselves, the way that people interacted, the things that they spoke about.

And it's not just necessarily in the direct things that people say to you, because sometimes with those, at least they're coming out front and saying it.

But it's more, I think, in the hidden barriers where people kind of treat you like, like kind of coddle you or treat you like kind of give you in a way like don't push you as hard or don't give you those opportunities or don't challenge you in that way they don't um sometimes my experience is they would almost like isolate you a bit from that or kind of just not giving consistent treatment across the board.

And that hurts you in two ways.

Where do you think this can lead you?