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Sean Osborne| Association of Black Citizens of Lexington

To celebrate National Engineers Week and Womens History Month, Sean Osborne, President of the Association of Black Citizens of Lexington, interviewed Victoria Suber, LHS Class of 2013. Ms. Suber received her Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from Temple University in 2017. She has passed the Fundamentals in Engineering Exam, the first of two examinations that engineers must pass in order to be licensed as a Professional Engineer in the United States. PE licensure is the engineering profession's highest standard of competence, a symbol of achievement and assurance of quality.

Less than 2 percent of Black freshmen in the United States enter college engineering programs. According to the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), 3,500 African-Americans earned engineering bachelors degrees in 2014.

ABCL understands that it is important to nurture Black students and professionals interest and aptitude in engineering.Through this interview we hope to expand their professional horizons and to provide the inspiration to lead our nation to greater economic prosperity.

When did your family move to Lexington?

My family moved to Lexington in February 1999. I started kindergarten at Bowman Elementary, then moved on to Clarke Middle School and graduated from LexingtonHigh School.

In what activities did you participate while you were a LPS student?

In elementary school I was part of the before school math program with Ms. Kisler from third to fifthgrade, I believe. Outside of school my mom signed me up for a variety of classes at Hayden Recreation Center: swimming lessons, pottery, jewelry making, cooking, gymnastics, and ice skating. I also attended Hayden Day Camp from first to fifth grade. In middle school I played soccer on Clarke's junior varsity soccer team for a year and ran track and field from 6th to 8th grade. In high school I participated in outdoor track & field from 10th to 12th grade and did indoor track & field and cross country my senior year. From 6th grade to theend of high school I also played violin in orchestra after first taking lessons at Bowman in fourth and fifth grade.

How well did LPS prepare you for the academic and social aspects of college?

I think that all around, LPS prepared me very well for college. Something that I realized in college was that I had a new-found freedom and independence of living on my own. I had no one telling me what to do or when to do it (except my coach who made sure we stayed on top of our coursework). My experience at LPS taught me how to think critically, and the competitive atmosphere also taught me the focus and discipline to stay on top of my workload. I also will never forget in 8th grade when my US History teacher Mr. Romulus taught us how to take notes, and that really stuck with me to this day. I learned how to read and process information much more efficiently which became a key part of how I was able to thrive in futureclasses. The academic challenges that I experienced at LPS taught me the reward of success from hard work. Socially, LPS taught me howto master being able to put on many faces. I learned tobe comfortable with people based on emotional and intellectual connections because I was not usually in classes with people who looked like me, forcing myself to adapt socially. This actually led me to become more introverted and develop a lot of hobbies on my own and made friends through my interests.

What made you choose your undergraduate institution?

I wanted to live somewhere new, meet new people. While LPS was great to me, I acknowledge that I was living in a bubble, and I felt that I needed to leave my peers in order to grow into the person that I always imagined myself to be. In middle school I started in the sport of fencing as a winter extracurricular with my friend Juliet and fell in love with the sport. When I was deciding on which colleges to apply, I really narrowed down my options to places that offered a competitive fencing program. I also wanted to attend a school with a variety of degree programs because I had too many interests to decide on a major. When I was accepted to Temple University I was thrilled just by the fact that I had an option to attend college thatmet all of my wants. From the moment my mom and I crossed the Ben Franklin Bridge into Philadelphia on our first visit, I could not stop smiling. I immediately started taking pictures of every painted mural and interesting-looking building that we drove past. I fell in love with Temple's campus: the open campus, being located right in the middle of North Philadelphia, the diversity of students, and that Temple really felt like a brand-new place. It was perfect for the growth and life that I dreamed for myself, so I had my mind set that this was the place I wanted to go if my first choice for college didn't work out (and it didn't). While I had already been accepted as an undergraduate student, the icing on the cake for me was when I was also accepted as a walk-on to the Division I Fencing Team.

Why did you choose to become a civil engineer?

Originally, I wanted to go to art school. I had a summer drawing class teacher encourage me to apply to Rhode Island School of Design at his recommendation, but the cost of tuition would be too high. Additionally, I was not confident in my ability to turn my hobby into how I made a living. I wanted to pick a college major that still integrated the creative aspect of fine arts, so I thought about pursuing an architecture major. However, I really love the math and sciences and I didn't find any architecture programs that would challenge me in those areas. My parents saw my indecision and my dad suggested that I look into civil engineering. I had never thought of pursuing an engineering degree because I had not taken a single engineering class at any level during my time at LPS. When I looked into undergraduate civil engineering programs, I realized how diverse civil engineering was, that I would be working on projects with visibly tangible results and saw that it best integrated my math and science (particularly physics) interests. What really sold me on civil engineering, particularly consulting, was working at my first internship at OSD Engineering Consultants in Lexington. I had never imagined that engineering could be so tedious yet active. I really enjoyed the problem-solving aspect of servicing clients, helping contribute to the well-being of others on a large scale, and the field experience. Engineering consulting felt balanced socially,intellectually, and physically.

How did trailblazers like Hattie T. Scott Peterson affect your career choice and your career trajectory?

When I started in civil engineering, I started to receive a lot of encouragement from peers and strangers to keep at it because there are not many femaleAfrican American professional engineers. I didn't think much of this until I joined NSBE (National Society of Black Engineers). The majority of Temple's engineering program consisted of white men, so it was pretty cool that there was such a supportive close-knit network of Black engineers. I made lifelong friends in NSBE, and the organization gave me an incredible amount of support and guidance in my civil engineering studies (especially since I had nearly zero exposure to engineering before college so I did become overwhelmed at times). Every professional Black engineer that I have met has contributed to my network of support in my choice to become a civil engineer with their guidance on how to advance my engineering career asan African American woman. As I get older, I've realized more and more the importance of supporting my black coworkers, associates, and mentors inmy field, so I look to the trailblazers in my field as sort of role models to what kinds of success are possible.

Had you heard of Hattie T. Scott Peterson before The Black History Project of Lexington?

Nope! Not to my knowledge. When I looked her up after reading your first question, I figured I must have heard of her before but I couldn't think of when. I don't know if it would make a difference for myself as a black female engineer because I never had a true role model in my life whose footsteps inspired me to follow; I kind of learned and grew into this awe and inspiration as I went along. For other NSBE members, who may feel more strongly about the role of role models, I think it would make a huge difference. NSBE is an organization that members are extremely proud to represent, so I believe that having a black woman as the face of trailblazing women engineers as a whole is very empowering and would help inspire not just NSBE collegiate members, but also NSBE Jr. members who are our high school counterparts.

What advice would you give to a Black LPS student who wants to be an engineer?

Don't be afraid to excel, don't be afraid to get outside of your comfort zone, and support and collaborate with your peers. Being Black in a professional field will always have its struggles but being able to find a support system that encourages and challenges you to achieve your aspirations, I think, is a big key to success. It's important to not only be open to the help and support being given to you, but also to give back to encourage your Black peers that "they can do it too". Also, be vocal about what you want to do. You never know who or what people know, and these connections can help build your network which is important in the professional world.

Original post:

An interview with Victoria Suber, Lexington native and civil engineer - Wicked Local