Engineering student with great drive

TO 24-YEAR-OLD Salome Ifeoluwa Odusoro, only a few things can be more fulfilling than working on a faulty car.

As the Nigerian said, she developed an unquenchable interest in the auto industry from childhood.

Odusoro has also always cherished education as she wanted to be a car mechanic.

To eat her cake and have it, she wouldn’t just start as an apprentice in a local car mechanic’s workshop, as many would. Instead, she headed to the University of Lagos, where she is now a 500-level mechanical engineering student.

Currently, she is doing her industrial training with Metropolitan Motors Ltd in Lagos, which specialises in working on Toyota and Kia cars, on which Odusoro has been honing her skills to be a repair and maintenance expert.

She also does Honda, Hyundai, Mitsubishi and even Ford cars.

Odusoro regards herself as a “doctor”, attending to cars the way a medical doctor works to save human lives. She said she found it “great fun” working on a car to put it in a healthy condition.

She disclosed that well before she chose to do mechanical engineering at university, she had been reading literature in that area because of her natural interest in vehicles.

Asked how she had been coping as a female mechanical engineering student, she responded: “It hasn’t been all rosy. There are the assignments, group projects, preparing for exams and more. But because of the interest I have in the course, classes have been exciting.”

While some people may still consider a career in cars odd for a woman, Odusoro expressed pride in what she is doing.

“I love it. At the company where I work, we don’t usually lie under vehicles; we lift a vehicle high to work under it.

“But it’s actually fun working under vehicles. Especially as these days I’ve started seeing vehicles technically as patients, while I’m the doctor. When a vehicle is faulty, we listen to the noise it makes and which part of the vehicle it’s coming from, and I love that,” she said.

Odusoro said it had not been without challenges, though, as she forged ahead in her cherished career.

“The major challenge is the issue of strength. There are some things that require strength that I can’t really do, such as having to loosen big tyres. There are some I feel can do, but sometimes when I want to do things that require a lot of strength, my bosses ask me not to do them because I’m a woman,” she said.

The female mechanic appreciates the admiration and encouragement she has been getting from some people. “Some men even asked me to come and work on their expensive cars, an offer I’ve declined because I’m still learning,” she said.

Her advice to young people was not to allow the obstacles of life to overwhelm them.

She particularly urged young women to engage in productive activities that would give them some level of financial independence.

“No one likes a parasitic relationship and a liability.

“For me, no work is meant for a particular gender. As long as you love it and are passionate about it, go for it,” she said. |