Meet Bryanna Andrews
Bryanna Andrews gratudated with a BA in English Language and Literature from the University of California Davis, a BSc in Wildlife, Fish, and Conservation Biology from the University of California Davis, an Associate Fellow from the Higher Education Academy (teaching credential), and is currently a student at the University of Edinburgh’s Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies. She currently works as the owner of Wildlife Doc which was built to offer wildlife conservation and medicine education to aspiring veterinarians and conservationists. In her spare time, Bryanna likes to scuba dive, hike and backpack, travel, volunteer, teach, and take photos.
When did your love of STEM begin?
My love of STEM began as a child; my mother is an epileptologist (neurologist specialising in epilepsy), and I spent a lot of my formative years following her around hospitals, assisting with EEGs, and helping with patients. I quickly realised I loved medicine, but wanted to work with a much wider variety of patients and diseases. I found passion for field work and medicine as a teenager and in my early 20s through research and veterinary internship positions in wildlife.
What is the best part about working in the field of STEM?
The feeling of solving a puzzle and working out a solution to a problem is my favourite part about STEM. I love that as a field it allows for the choice between discovering new things never before known as well as playing a detective, especially in the medical field, to discover the source of a problem and find a creative and lasting solution to it.
What advice would you give young women interested in a career in STEM?
When trying to get into a career in STEM, first decide what your dream job would look like, and do what you can to pick up skills along the way to achieve that. These may be online courses on the side, internships, additional training programs, mentorship, etc. Too often we are told that our particular area of interest is saturated, doesn’t exist, or doesn’t pay well, and that causes people to give up on making their dream career a reality. With a little flexibility and a lot of passion and creativity, you can find or create the exact job you want for yourself, you just need to be willing to look outside major institutions and not expect ideal positions to be well-advertised or handed to you!