Ordinarily Extraordinary - Conversations with women in STEM
We’re Kathy Kale Nelson and Linda LaTourelle — co-hosts of Ordinarily Extraordinary: Conversations with Women in STEM.
Our mission is to amplify the voices of ordinary women doing extraordinary work in science, technology, engineering, and math.
We’re deeply committed to:
- Normalizing the presence of women in STEM by making their stories visible
- Building community for women who may be the only ones like them in their workplace
- Educating listeners about the wide variety of STEM careers — and what they actually look like
- Empowering growth and retention by addressing the challenges behind the leaky pipeline
From early-career professionals to experienced leaders in a wide variety of STEM fields, our guests share how they got started, how they’ve grown, and what they’ve learned along the way. This podcast is a space where women in STEM can be seen, heard, and supported — because representation isn’t just powerful, it’s essential.
Ordinarily Extraordinary - Conversations with women in STEM
66. Kay Paulus - Software Engineering Manager, B.S. Mechanical Engineering
Kay Paulus is software engineering manager at a Software as a Service company in rural Minnesota. She has a Bachelor's of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Notre Dame, and transitioned into software engineering early in her career.
Episode Notes
Kay shares her career journey and how life sometimes has its own path, regardless of her well designed plans that she had laid out. She shares challenges she encountered early on in her part-time military service after completing the ROTC program during college.
We discuss the challenges of working with young kids and its accompanying "mom guilt", small town lake life in Minnesota, working remotely before it became "a thing", and many pieces of great advice - including the importance of self care.
Music used in the podcast: Higher Up, Silverman Sound Studio
Acronyms, Definitions, and Fact Check
ROTC - The Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) is a college program offered at more than 1,700 colleges and universities across the United States that prepares young adults to become officers in the U.S. Military. In exchange for a paid college education and a guaranteed post-college career, participants, or cadets, commit to serve in the Military after graduation. Each Service branch has its own take on ROTC. (https://www.todaysmilitary.com/education-training/rotc-programs?gclid=Cj0KCQjwiNSLBhCPARIsAKNS4_coghgTTPqwLONnsGJlt6OsOTqMwUjE4487D69a7nE8iskV22RAxrcaAmuOEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds)
Software as a service (SaaS) is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. SaaS is also known as "on-demand software" and Web-based/Web-hosted software. (wikipedia)
Carlson School of Management - The Curtis L. Carlson School of Management is a business school at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. The Carlson School offers undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral degrees, as well as an executive education program. (wikipedia)
It takes an average of about 25 minutes (23 minutes and 15 seconds, to be exact) to return to the original task after an interruption, according to Gloria Mark, who studies digital distraction at the University of California, Irvine.How long does it take to get back on track when getting interrupted. (http://blog.idonethis.com/distractions-at-work/)
Society of Women Engineers: https://swe.org/
Camp Invent: https://www.invent.org/
