Photo By Staff Sgt. Erick Yates | U.S. Army Reserve and National Guard Soldiers pose for a photo alongside a group of...... read more read more
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CAMP BONDSTEEL, Kosovo – Kosovo college students participating in the Females in Information Technology program met with a panel of six U.S. Army citizen-Soldiers, serving with the Kosovo Force peace support mission, for a session on navigating a solid and successful career in IT, Oct. 22 at Pristina’s American University in Kosovo.
The Soldiers, who are assigned to Multinational Battle Group-East, are members of the U.S. Army Reserve and National Guard, and used the opportunity to highlight their civilian careers as well as their military service.
FIT is a not-for-profit program sponsored by the Enhancing Youth Employment Project, supported by the Swiss Cooperation Office Kosovo, whose purpose is to inspire women to achieve their career aspirations and potential within IT, and boost employment of females by facilitating peer networking and support.
The Soldiers on the panel have IT backgrounds, and were willing to spend the first part of their day with the students discussing a range of topics, to include IT education, networking tools, interviewing skills and the challenges women may encounter in the competitive field of IT.
Gena Sturgon, an English instructor for the program, said there are more than 70 female students enrolled in the course. Sturgon’s approach for instructing the students is to focus primarily on speaking and listening, versus reading and writing.
“The students have enjoyed engaging in the speaking process using business and IT terms,” Sturgon said.
Sharing her observations about the students in the 10-week course, Sturgon said she has seen considerable improvement in the students’ ability to speak English. Most importantly, she could see the growth in confidence with their English-speaking skills, influenced by the exercises given in the course.
During the networking session, the Soldiers gave details of their civilian and military career backgrounds, and discussed some of the individual challenges and career planning techniques they’ve seen and used over the years.
Maj. Karen Schlobohm, a North Carolina National Guard logistics officer for the 30th Armored Brigade Combat Team, and a former operations manager for Amazon, said it was a privilege to share her experience and advice with such a talented group of young women.
“Having been a working professional for 15 years, I am almost at the mid-point of my career and acknowledge that I have a responsibility to ensure those that follow in my footsteps are better equipped than I was to successfully navigate the challenges of a rapidly changing industry,” she said.
“The session was very exciting and different,” said Liridone Demaj, an English literature and web design student at the University of Pristina.
“I learned how people from different areas work, and how women from other societies function, aside from our society,” she said.
As the panel members engaged the students, they pretty much all agreed that stepping outside the communication comfort zone is important. Having an understanding of how to communicate in a close setting is essential—especially during the interview process.
To help demonstrate the importance of close setting communication, the class practiced elevator pitches to give the students a better of idea of what talking points to use during interviews or short exchanges with senior executives.
“Using the elevator speech is the best practice the students can get,” said Staff Sgt. Sarah Ward, a religious program specialist for MNBG-E, and a senior vice president with Bank of America in Charlotte, North Carolina. “The speeches help emphasize the importance of networking,” she said.
Ward said it’s a great idea that the program’s instructor uses Soldiers with IT backgrounds to mentor the students.
Maj. Brian Dodd, MNBG-E’s senior signal officer and a customer service support engineer for Cisco, and 1st Lt. Casey McKinley, another MNBG-E headquarters staff member and a federal civilian computer engineer, said they were very impressed by the students’ extensive backgrounds.
“The women we met with all speak and write excellent English,” Dodd said. “From a technical perspective, most of them can code in more than one programming language.”
“What surprised me is the creativity and eagerness the students in the program have,” he added.
“I think what the program offers is interesting and important,” said Sgt. Travanda Burton, the noncommissioned officer in charge for communications and IT at MNBG-E’s Task Force Medical.
Developing a female voice is important, especially in this career field, Burton said, adding that she felt empowered by the experience of mentoring the programs’ members while deployed as a Soldier.
“For me, being able to speak to fellow engineers and give recommendations based on my experiences was truly an honor,” McKinley said.
“As National Guard Soldiers, we bring a different dynamic to opportunities like this while we are on deployments,” he explained. “Our civilian careers and experiences allow us to further show how dynamic the Army is with the diversity of our Soldiers.”
| Date Taken: | 10.22.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 10.29.2015 03:53 |
| Story ID: | 180267 |
| Location: | PRISTINA, ZZ |
| Web Views: | 172 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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