Today we’d like to introduce you to Cristina Gutierrez.
Hi Cristina, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I was very young when I realized I enjoyed working with children. I started babysitting at 14 years old, and my first professional experience came when I started working as a Summer Day Camp Counselor for the City of San Fernando. Since then, I’ve had the pleasure of working with countless families across the NE San Fernando Valley. My family and I immigrated to the US when I was a little over a year old, and besides my time away in college, the San Fernando Valley is the only home I’ve ever known. As a result, I feel very connected to the students and families I’ve worked with in my 10+ years in the community. My proudest achievement to date has been bringing my knowledge and resources to my community; a community with so much promise. This brings me to my current role as Director of Programs & Partnerships for DIY Girls. Our founder, current Assemblymember Luz Rivas, founded DIY Girls because she also saw a lot of promise in the young women of our community. As an engineer, she often experienced what it was like be the only woman and only women of color in her field, and with DIY Girls she was on a mission to change that. DIY Girls is a nonprofit organization that offers free, after school programs with a mission to increase girls’ interest and success in technology, engineering and making through hands-on educational STEAM experiences. The most rewarding part of my role is seeing girls with big dreams become confident in their ability to achieve them.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
The road isn’t always easy, but the key is to think about what you can learn from the struggles along the way. When I think back, the greatest challenge for me was underestimating my knowledge, skills and abilities. When I first learned about the opening for my current position, I hesitated to apply because I didn’t meet all of the requirements. I was very concerned about not having a STEM background, and it was my older sister who said that with all my previous experience, I could be a great fit, and in her words, “whatever you don’t know, you can learn.” This was so true. I have been able to apply so much of my previous experience to my work with DIY Girls and at the same time, this role has been the greatest learning curve thus far. Whenever our high school participants are working on difficult projects, I love telling them that they are doing work most engineering students don’t see until their first year of college. I want them to understand just how challenging the work they are doing is, and most importantly, I want them to know that they are MORE than capable so that in the future, they don’t second guess themselves when an opportunity comes their way.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
At DIY Girls, our goal is to inspire the next generation of female STEM leaders. We do this by working with young girls and introducing them to professionals in careers and fields they may have never heard of. In our programs, girls have an opportunity to apply the technical skills they learn to projects they love. DIY Girls is creating a pipeline for young girls in grades 5th-12th so that they can continue exploring their STEM interests. When our founder began DIY Girls at her elementary, she began with a group of thirty-two 5th grade girls. Today, we can say that some of those girls have gone on to pursue STEM majors like Environmental Engineering and Mechanical Engineering at universities like Brown, UCLA, CSUN and UC Riverside. Our goal is for more and more of our participants to go on to pursue STEM majors and careers and someday return to their community to mentor the next generation of DIY Girls.
Have you learned any interesting or important lessons due to the Covid-19 Crisis?
When the Covid-19 pandemic began, our organization had to become creative and consider how we would continue operating without having in-person access to our students. In this transition, we have learned just how important partnerships are. DIY Girls has been very fortunate to have the support of our school and community partners during this time. Without their support, we wouldn’t have been able to continue our work in the community during the pandemic, and it proves how important it is to work together and collaborate in order to persist through such difficult times.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: www.diygirls.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/diygirlsorg/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DIYGirlsOrg/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/DIYGirls
Image Credits:
Jennifer Serena
