Issue link: http://maconmagazine.uberflip.com/i/1518483
WOMEN WHO WELD Welding instructor Jason Haramut thinks there is "100 percent" more interest in welding from female students than there once was, and he points to students Emma Hughes and Ashanti Brown as examples. Both of these Welding and Joining Technology students were finalists for the GOAL (Georgia Occupational Award of Leadership) award, a statewide program. Hughes and Brown both came to the welding program at CGTC from other schools and different fields of study, and they feel like this program has helped them find their voice. "The hands-on instruction fit my personality really well," explained Hughes. "With the amount of time and energy that gets put into teaching with one student, I feel like that really pushed my career into something where I feel like I actually can do everything." Though it's still a male-dominated field, "you realize you do better than half the men in the program," said Brown, who realized that, "I was capable of doing things that I'd never seen myself doing." Shop hand Amber Widner agrees: "I was a single mom, and I went through full-time school working a full-time job. I did it anyway." Widner believes her determination came from the gritty lessons learned in the program. She got her first job 10 months into the 18-month program. "I was trying to prove a point," she shared. Haramut says that this is a strategy he uses to motivate women to excel in STEM fields and stick with it: "You find someone with a drive, and you just tell them, 'Hey, you want to show these guys up real quick?' You activate that sense of competition. Suddenly those fine motor skills, attention to detail, multitasking come to life in the lab." A rtists, athletes, and aviators. You can't put the collegiate women of Central Georgia in a box. From welders to White House honorees, the future of female leadership begins with their budding ideas. According to Pew Research Center, women now comprise over 50% of all workers with a college degree in the U.S., a shift occuring in the workforce in just the last five years. To give insight into these women's activities and aspirations for this issue, we put a spotlight on one aspect of life for college women at a given Central Georgia institution. If you haven't stepped on campus lately, go check out a public program or support a scholarship fund. These women are worth it. C E N T R A L G E O R G I A T E C H N I C A L C O L L E G E Emma Hughes on campus in the CGTC Welding Lab.