A Little Introduction
Hello and welcome to Back to the Water. This is my first post and I’m so happy about it! A little about me, my name’s Nikki. I’m a woman in my early 30’s who left my career in the STEM field for a life, you guessed it, in the water. The long story short is I was booted (aka fired without a specified reason) from the STEM field after 7 dedicated years and had my world turned upside down in an instant. Fortunately, I soon landed a part time job at a Helicopter Underwater Escape Training (HUET) facility. From spreadsheets and misogyny to scuba diving and underwater rescues. Talk about a career pivot.
Unfortunately, there was (and is) one big downside to my new job: it’s only part time. So, great, I no longer have access to healthcare and retirement benefits. In this economy? Wonderful. Super. Queue existential crisis.
I’m now on a journey to completely rebuild my life and identity outside of STEM. Growing up, I was a water kid. I’ve been able to swim for as long as I can remember and I spent many days on the beaches of northern California. As an early teenager I moved to the midwest, where the closest beach was on one of the great lakes. I took up springboard diving through high school, and later went on to major in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering at the University of Michigan. My engineering career took me to New England where I worked at a naval submarine design and manufacturing company. A few years later I became scuba certified and started volunteering my time at a local scuba shop. My scuba certification was then able to get me my job as a safety diver at the HUET facility. When I look back on it, I couldn’t stay out of the water. I wouldn’t go so far as to call myself a mermaid, but the call is undeniable. I now live on the East Coast, 10 mins from the coastline, with a job that has me in the water more days than not.
I used to hate my life. I was so drained from my day job that I didn’t have time or energy to make measurable improvements to any aspects of life outside of it. You could say I was barely treading water. It wasn’t until I got that kick in the pants of getting fired that I was able to change my life for the better. I’m still on this journey, and I want to share it with you. For those of you on a similar journey or those who want to see someone else do it, let’s do this together. I’d love to hear from you.