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Name and surnames: Núria Llosas Pellisé, secretary of the board
Date of degree: 18 of July of 2003 in Chemical Engineering
Current job: Co-owner of NQA Engineers Engineering
1. What attracted you to engineering?
At first I was clear that I had to do some science career, as it is what I like and am passionate about, but engineering attracted me to seek, experience and solve different problems and situations that may exist in the daily life. At home I was always told that I had firefighter ideas as I was always looking for, testing and experimenting until I figured out how to solve challenges or situations around me.
2. How did you experience your training?
My training was intense, with a lot of effort and with great laughter but also with tears, but above all with tension to get everywhere, because when I did Engineering, in each course in addition to having to perform the tasks and assignments of each subject in particular, there was a global project of all the subjects of the course in order to substantiate the teamwork, and at the same time the competition and rivalry between us, as we obtained an individual and team qualification of the project carried out in verse that the teachers considered that we had done each and that affected all the subjects.
So in the race I learned to work as a team and with colleagues with whom you did not have to have any affinity, but who had to work to develop a project that had to go ahead.
3. Did you feel weird in a male environment?
As for classmates I did not feel at all strange, as I never noticed that they looked at you or treated you differently because you were a woman, another fact would be in verse the teacher that there was a bit of everything, it is necessary to state that when I studied, in the whole career of 5 years, there were only 3 teachers who were women and all the rest were men, therefore the treatment with the teachers towards the students was different towards the men, not I say it was bad, but it could be seen that there were teachers who had a more paternalistic treatment, with a spirit of protection, or difficulty in being able to do things. I remember an anecdote in a laboratory, where we had to assemble a water system, and my team was made up only of women, and the teacher came and told us, “because you don’t have the strength to be all girls, I'm sure that when you finish assembling the system there will be fluid leaks in all the joints, let me know when you have presented it and I will already glue the screws in all the joints of the system so that there are no losses ", giving for it was impossible that we could do it perfectly well or just like any other group where there were men and in whom he never offered such help. That day in that teacher we showed him that without help he was perfect and without losses and that being from one sex or the other does not mean that things cannot be developed properly.
4. Has your job development surrounded by men been easy?
It’s now easier than when I just got out of the race. From the beginning of my career I had the idea that I wanted to set up an engineering consultancy and therefore when I left the degree, I worked as a teacher and at the same time I set up an engineering consultancy and therefore the beginnings went be hard, because when I had to develop a project of works for example and the necessary orders were given for the development of the same to the workers, there if an atmosphere of very men was observed and that you had to win the with respect to dust and with a lot of effort of your knowledge so that they respect your decisions, since just for the simple fact that you were a woman they questioned everything that could be said or indicated to them and always ended up commenting that we would be better if we stayed home or looking for another type of job. But little by little and on the basis of demonstrating the knowledge and aptitude to develop what we have proposed, I have gained respect in this world and therefore today, in general, it is already more easily assimilated that women exist in roles of responsibility and performing tasks that in the past were performed only by men; that if, although there has been a great advance if I am aware that women in this world we have to fight daily, as we have to show that we know what we are talking about and doing, as mistakes or expressions of discomfort being a woman, it is still cataloged by phrases or words that I do not think or comment here but that I have heard referring to fellow engineers who are also engaged in this world.
5. How do you see the world of engineering for women today?
The world of engineering has yet to advance further for women, as most of the positions held by women today, although there are already engineers holding positions of responsibility, most of them I see cataloged within the field of occupational risk safety and in the field of the environment in pollution controls, etc. but that today it is still difficult, although there are some engineers, to see women in the field of chemical plant management, engine design, etc. Therefore, I believe that women engineers must continue to work, to be able to apply to any field of engineering and that society gives the same opportunity to access in these sectors still a lot of men.
6. What challenges do we need to overcome?
I think that the challenges we have to overcome are that we need to know how to spread the word that girls also have the capacity to be able to develop more technical careers and that they can access them later in the world of work. Therefore, we need to make today's girls more concerned with technical tasks, that is, as I said at the beginning, with girls developing "firefighter ideas" to solve situations or tasks. and that they are not encapsulated in “don't do this, the father or the brother will do it”, but that they are allowed to devise, experiment, design to get what they want, that is, develop the ingenuity to get the 'goal.