Today we are continuing with our series, Swimming with Sharks: Females in Male Dominated Industries and Careers. Women have made significant strides globally over the years, however, there are many fields that remain male dominated, not just at the top, but often in the trenches too. Male-dominated industries and occupations are particularly vulnerable to reinforcing masculine stereotypes that make it even more difficult for women to excel. In the United States, only 7.2% of women worked full-time in male-dominated occupations in 2018. In my country of Turks and Caicos, women continue to ascend to leadership roles at a fast pace, however, not very many women have ventured into male-dominated fields.In this episode we will learn about the challenges women face in male-dominated industries and how one young lady decided on a career path in a male-dominated field and is striving.We are joined by Te-Andra Thomas. She hails from the beautiful island of South Caicos, and started her early education at the Calvary Christian School, then went on to attend the Iris Stubbs primary school. Her family was relocated to Grand Turk in 2000. There she was enrolled at the Eliza Simmons Primary school where she spent a year before her family moved once again to Providenciales where she attended and completed her primary level education at the Ianthe Pratt Primary School. In 2003 she enrolled at the Maranatha High School now Maranatha Academy. She graduated in 2008 with 12 CXC examinations. She was the recipient of an engineering scholarship from FortisTCI. After a one (1) year apprenticeship with the company, TeAndra moved to St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada to begin her studies at Memorial University of Newfoundland. In May of 2015, TeAndra graduated with a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Mechanical Engineering (B.Eng). In October 2015, TeAndra was the recipient of the National Young Achiever Medal for her academic achievement in the field of Mechanical Engineering and also for mentorship. She is currently employed at Fortis TCI as the Energy Production Engineer in the Energy Production department. TeAndra is also the founder of a non-profit organization Let’s INC (Imagine. Nurture. Create.) A mentoring initiative which was started out of a desire to share uplifting messages of enlightenment to speak to the dreamer in everyone to push them to not only dream, but to pursue. TeAndra’s life mantra is “do good and good will follow you.