Advancing Automotive Through Education by Arianna

Advancing Automotive Through Education by Arianna - August 2024 Scholarship Essay

I have been surrounded by cars my whole life. My dad is a mechanic, my grandmother has worked in body shops her entire life, and I have been an automotive student and competitor at my high school for the last 3 years. However, both my dad and grandma faced deep racism and sexism throughout their careers. This happens so often for women and people of color in the industry and I believe it needs to be changed. Although the usual pathway is for people to enter trade school to work in the automotive industry, I aspire to attend a four-year college to get a degree in business management with a concentration in human resources. I believe this will give me the educational resources and knowledge to become a trailblazer in the automotive industry and create change so people like my family no longer have to face as many hardships as employees.
In automotive, technicians often work for 20-30 years and then decide to open their own business with their prior experience. Although I do not plan to fast track my automotive career, I would like to gain a degree in business management so that I may learn the proper entrepreneurial and leadership skills to create a successful business of my own one day. With a business management degree, I want to learn how to create a functional business model, manage employees, gain funding and investments, and build a great team that will support my business. In my local area, I often see many mom-and-pop shops that, while holding great value and experience, fail to grow their business and suffer from the security that dealerships provide to consumers they cannot provide. With a degree, I believe that I could help to create a business that would bridge the gap between local shops and dealerships and provide a nationally known shop to fix cars that could provide the security of a dealership, but the morals of a local shop as well. It would allow the proper resources and education to become a great business owner.
However, despite the success of a business, the automotive industry still holds many outdated ideas and values. My grandmother told me many stories where a customer would come in and ask to speak to a man instead, or she would be treated unfairly and as if she was less knowledgeable about information simply because she was a woman. Although she attended the same schools and training as many other men in the industry she was still treated as if her education was inadequate due to her gender. This is something I have also personally faced and would like to create change from. For this reason, I would like to minor in or concentrate on human resources to bring more focus to helping employees through policies in my company.
Overall, I see the next step in my education as getting a degree in business management with some form of concentration in human resources. Although this isn’t necessary, this is simply a personal goal so I can aim to better the automotive industry and myself.