Samantha Westsepter

There's a quote I heard somewhere in my early collegiate career that said, if there's not a seat at the table for you, bring a folding chair. I just took that to heart. It doesn't matter if you're too quirky, it doesn't matter if you're too smart, or if you think you're too dumb, or if your ideas are so out of the box that no one understands them, they don't have to. It's your passion, it's your calling, you do with it what you want. You let God orchestrate that for you, or whatever your beliefs are. My encouragement to young women, and what I tell young college students that I've recruited, is be yourself. Let your passion drive you, and don't try to fit into a box. Your purpose might be bigger. If they don't have a table with a seat for you, bring your own folding chair. You can make your own. That's what businesses are for, that's how we get entrepreneurship.

I feel like there are definitely both challenges and opportunities for women. I think that scene from the Barbie movie really captures it, where you have to be tall, but not too tall, you have to be successful, but not too successful. I think that's definitely a challenge, no matter what industry you go into. Especially if you have a family or aspire to have one, there are certain responsibilities that come with that, and being able to juggle everything and not burn out, I think is the challenge. Having a community that understands that, supports that, and just helps you grow where you're at for the season, and for the seasons that you're hoping to come, I think is important. I think those are great opportunities for women to create other businesses based on that. I think there's a lot of opportunities for women in STEM right now, just because everything with AI is exploding. You can take any digital courses, or even Udemy courses in AI. The traditional collegiate track is no longer the end-all, be-all. You can get a six-figure salary-paying job with a Google certificate. Understanding that opportunity is really what you make of it, and what you look into, as opposed to what's being laid out for you. I think that can be its own challenge as well.

Faith is number one. I have learned over the years that if I don't put God in the center of it, I'm never gonna be successful, because it's not going to be his will. So that is definitely where I try to put everything else on. And then I think my other pillars are gonna be integrity, passion, and understanding where someone's at and meeting them where they are. I think those are driving forces, just as a human. When I meet people, like right now I'm in the hospital with my mom, she's having hip surgery later today. I had housekeeping come in, young girl named Genesis. I was like, oh, I love your name. We start talking. I was like, is there a story behind it? And now I feel like I know this person. We talked about her dad, I know about her brothers, and I'm in this whole human connection because I used her name in a sentence. I try to speak passionate and caring to everyone that I encounter. Those are my driving factors. You never know what's going to come from it. I believe in taking time to pause and reflect before making decisions, especially when things feel rushed. When I feel like something is moving very fast, that's when I know I should take time to pause a little longer, as opposed to jumping straight into something. I always say that when things are rushed, it's usually not divine. I definitely want to make sure I'm being true to myself. I think about decisions and pray on them, and if something is meant to be, then it's divinely aligned.