ProWoc Celebrates
Audrey Dogbeh
HVAC Engineer passionate about BIM and data
ProWoc Celebrates AUDREY DOGBEH, is a building engineer and a BIM (Building Information Modeling) coordinator. Audrey is French and has studied and lived in Denmark since 2011. ProWoc spoke to Audrey about her journey and achievements.
6th Edition, January 2023
Introducing Audrey Dogbeh
My name is Audrey Dogbeh and I am French. I have been living in Denmark for over 8 years. I came in 2011 to study a M.Sc. in Architectural Engineering at DTU, in collaboration with my Engineering School in France. At the time I wanted to stay in Denmark after my masters, but the job search did not bear fruit. However, I got offered a job in Manchester, UK. Being adventurous, I thought “Why not?” and left Denmark in 2014. I then had the opportunity to come back to Copenhagen in 2017 through an ongoing construction project based here. Since the end of my studies, I have been working as a building engineer and a BIM coordinator in the same large engineering consulting company.
Asides from work, I love to read about psychology, behavioural science, and digital technologies, and how they can provide solutions to today’s societal issues. The book and podcast Freakonomics (by Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt) is the perfect picture of all that I find fascinating about the subjects. I also have a creative side and love a manual project; be it learning DIY to renovate and decorate my apartment or sewing my own clothes. That’s the kind of activities where I really get in a state of flow and forget about anything else.
One of my sewing projects.
What were your first impressions of Denmark, of work, school, and social situations?
Arriving here in 2011, I was generally just excited to live abroad for the first time and to evolve in a completely new culture and system. This fit well with my curiosity for other countries and languages, and I think that new beginnings are nice occasionally to shake up the day-to-day. I have always been good with languages, and I learned Danish quite quickly while at university. Danes seem to appreciate the effort because they are conscious that their language is a tough one to learn.
I am lucky to have had welcoming and kind colleagues and being in a company with a good culture. But coming back for England, I had not spoken Danish in 3 years and being an introverted person, I preferred to work and listen to my colleagues, rather than risk breaking the flow of conversation by speaking English. But I did know Danish, so it was just a matter of easing back into it, little by little. Today I work and speak fluently in Danish.
Enjoying the south of France and its gastronomy!
On the social side, while most interactions are fortunately kind and cordial, one thing that used to anger me is being addressed to in English before the interlocutor knows whether I can speak Danish. As if the colour of my skin immediately informed that I most likely couldn’t speak Danish. I used to think about natives or people who have lived in Denmark for a long time, and who must still get addressed in English occasionally. But being interested in how the brain works and why we do the things we do, I try to keep in mind that most of it is unconscious automatisms, created by lack of exposure. Most people simply think they are being helpful by switching to English. So I choose to not let it get under my skin anymore and just carry on in Danish. But I hope that increased diversity and visibility for people of colour in Denmark will help on that part!
What is the best piece of advice that you received?
One that I have received more than once, is to live my life the way it feels right for me and to let go of other people’s expectations of what it should look like.
The second is not one that I have received directly but one that I have read and that resonates with me:
“Where you are in this moment is exactly where you are supposed to be”.
I tend to constantly think “What’s next?” and I have also struggled with the feeling of not living up to the image that I had of my future self when I was a child. Some things have happened, others haven’t, and it’s important for me to stay in the present and remember all the great ways I have evolved.
What are your plans and goals for the next years?
I am also exploring how to balance all my interests, stop limiting myself to other people’s expectations and escape the rat race: 4-day work week, nomadic work, financial independence etc. are topics I keep a close eye one.
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