My name is Ribka, and I grew up in Austin, Texas, USA. I ended up staying in my hometown for college and majoring in mechanical engineering at the University of Texas at Austin—not so much because it was a passion or even interest of mine, but because I didn’t really know what to choose as a life path at eighteen years old, and because my parents figured it would be the fastest way to get me off their list of financial responsibilities. My parents are Indian and Ethiopian, and as a semi first-generation American kid, let’s just say that engineering is… a very favourable career path for these ethnic groups (as are medicine and law—if you know, you know).

Conveniently enough, engineering actually ended up working out. After years of using it as an excuse to explore the world outside of Texas as frequently as possible—going to engineering conferences and landing my first internship at Toyota, which took me to Michigan for a semester (first step: out of my home state), creating a course list for myself and going to South Korea on exchange for another semester (next step: out of the U.S.), doing a summer research program at a university in Santiago, Chile (any reason to live in a new country at this point); and finally, applying to a master’s program in Denmark—I now live in Copenhagen, and work as a mechanical design engineer.

I got my master’s in materials science and manufacturing engineering at the Technical University of Denmark after two years here, and I’ve been working at WSAudiology, a hearing aid company, designing and testing hearing aid components, ever since.  Traveling to new places continues to bring me joy by teaching me about the world and the people in it, so I continue to weave it into my life and career wherever possible.

My serious passions include advocating for and supporting girls, women, and people of color in any and every space that I occupy. I volunteer with two NGOs here in Copenhagen: High5Girls, which helps expose young girls to careers in STEM; and Projekt Qværk, which helps former victims of domestic violence find community with each other. My less serious passions include finding recipes online and making food for my friends, playing the violin and jamming with other musicians, sailing, crossfit, climbing, going to the sauna, cold plunging (very scandi), reading six books at a time so it takes me six times as long to finish each one, and traveling to at least one new country per year.

When I moved here in 2018 to begin my master’s at DTU, I was so excited to have officially left the States. I had left the U.S. dozens of times before, but this time there was no end date or return ticket. This time, I had moved seven time zones away from an entire community of friends and family and was ready to start anew for the long haul.

I ended up really enjoying graduate school at DTU, and was pleasantly surprised by the hands-on and collaborative approach to education in Denmark. This approach emphasized learning over grades, which allowed me to soak up information in a way that I had never experienced before.

I noticed quickly that the Danes I met at university, although very polite and cordial, were a bit difficult to get past surface-level conversations with. So I became friends with other internationals who, like me, had come to Denmark to study or work. Now, after six years of living here, I have many Danes in my life, but most of my closest connections are still other expats.

The main challenge that I’ve encountered in my journey is often being the “only” in the room. While studying and working in a male-dominated field like engineering, I have been and still very often am the only woman in the room. I am also often the only person of colour in any given room, in both professional and social settings. When you’re used to being the “only” in the room from a young age, you become accustomed to dealing with people who have no qualms about directing questions and comments at you that highlight the very fact that you are different. And as a result, you become hyper aware of your existence.