Name: Andrea Studzinski

Title: Technical Editor III

Education: BA in English; BA in Languages, Literatures, and Cultures from Colorado State University; in May will graduate from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with an MS in Library and Information Sciences.

Company Description: Ping Identity is an identity and access management software and services production company focused on innovative solutions to give the right people access to the right information at the right time.

Tell us more about your job. As an editor, I review the content produced by the technical writers. I search for grammar and spelling errors, but also for XML tagging errors so that when the content is ready, it looks nice and standardized on the website. The idea behind my job is to make everyone think that we only have one writer who does all the work.

Why is STEM important within your industry? In software, STEM means that our engineers have the ability to build on previous knowledge and experiment with new combinations of code to create new tools that can improve the experience of millions of users worldwide, even if they don't realize that their experience has been improved. Our technology makes it so that registering for accounts and adding forms of payment to your accounts is easy and that your information stays secure. It also means that when you're doing online doctor's appointments and looking at your medical records you can know that only the necesary staff, like your doctor, see that information. For tech writing, STEM matters because having a strong STEM background makes it easier to know what words to use to communicate to users about how to use a particular tool, program, or service.

Was there a specific moment when you decided you wanted to pursue STEM as a career? I can't remember a specific moment at all, but I do remember always knowing how smart my parents are, who both have STEM degrees, and who encouraged my sister and I to try a lot of different things and to read voraciously. As a family, we played so many board games that it was just natural to think analytically, which is essential for STEM and STEAM careers. I know that at around age 7, I wanted to be a veterinarian because I love animals, but I think I must have been to Sea World at some point as a child because by 6th grade, I wanted to go into marine biology so that I could be a Sea World dolphin trainer. In high school, I loved our genetics unit in my biology class, and so I looked into what it would take to be a geneticist, and that started with a biochemistry degree.

What do you like best about your job? I like that I get to read about all of Ping's products. As an editor, I have review all the documentation for all of what we offer, so I get to have a sort of mile high view of everything, and I really like that there's always something new going on with at least one product, and there's always something new to figure out how to explain or how to rewrite or how to restructure so that it makes more sense to people.

What are the most important skills needed in your job? You have to be a strong writer - grammar, spelling, and an eye for style and using the best words possible to explain something so that you can use fewer of them.

Have there been times in your career where you've faced difficult challenges and how were you able to overcome them? Technical writing is different from other types of writing. If you choose the wrong word or if you change a verb tense, you can completely change the meaning of the sentence, and while this happens in other writing, changing the meaning in a technical documentation can create confusion at best and at worst, it can mean that someone does something wrong with the tools and potentially ruins their computer or exposes private information to hackers and other people who don't need to know that information, and that's obviously bad. So I had a lot to learn about understanding how the software works so that I could see when the suggestions I was making would lead to a change in what a user would actually be doing. To do that, I did more training about our products, and I started to ask more questions. Asking questions is now the most important part of my editorial process.

What advice would you give to girls of all ages who are interested in STEM? STEM/STEAM is the foundation of innovation, but sometimes it won't be about the innovation. Sometimes, it's routine, and that can be boring, but don't give up. Just keep trying. Try everything you can. You never know what you're going to love - science is founded on trying a lot of different things to see what works. What is life except one long science experiment? With trying, you have to not be afraid to make mistakes and to not be afraid to change your mind. And don't be afraid to find ways to make science and art work together. I'm such a fan of the newer push for STEAM because the arts are also important, and I think it reflects that science and math are often the foundation for really interesting art.Girls And Science - PING Identity