[Jada] If you love to problem solve, if you're always looking with curiosity at things, engineering will be a great fit for you.

Hi, my name's Rylee.

And I'm on a mission to talk to as many engineers as I can to see why they'll always be in demand.

Today, I'm talking to an industrial engineer who's also a beauty entrepreneur!

I want to find out what these two things have in common, and how she engineered her future.

Ready?

Let's go!

Hey, Jada!

So I heard you're into makeup.

Yes, I love makeup.

I've been into makeup ever since I was about your age.

I love the creativity that you see on fashion shows or movies.

So that led me to make my own company, Adaj Beauty.

And so with that, I make lip balms, hair oils, and lip glosses with all kinds of scents, like cotton candy and strawberry.

Do you like makeup?

Yes, of course.

But I also heard you're an engineer.

How does an engineer and makeup have things in common?

[Jada] Yeah, so makeup is creating things and that's basically what engineers do.

So I learned how to, one, make my makeup when I was in my engineering courses, as well as how to ship my product.

So I took supply chain and distribution classes when I was in engineering.

And so that helped me to figure out how I wanted to get my product to my customers.

[Rylee] Well, let's talk about the engineering part right now.

Tell me about what you do at work.

So I am an operations manager for Target.

So basically, what that means is I am a head of the distribution center in a specific department, and I'm in charge of getting the products to the stores.

So anything that you see on the shelves, like bikes and sneakers, bubble bath, anything like that.

It's my job to make sure it gets to the stores on time and has the right amount on the shelves.

Well, you seem like a hard-working woman, but what are some things you like to do in your free time besides running your makeup empire?

[Jada] So I love to paint.

I love playing with my Yorkie.

His name is Maxwell.

I also love to travel, and play with friends and family.

And I also go to the skating rink every now and then.

That is so cool.

But let's talk a little bit more about the engineer part.

Who or what inspired you to do what you do today?

I would say my family and my friends, they definitely encouraged me.

My friends were actually the people that came up with my name, Adaj Beauty, for my business.

And then my mom, she always pushed me towards engineering.

Anytime I would fix something or solve a math problem, she would always say, "You should be an engineer."

And so, I kind of just took that and ran with it.

Okay, so your life seems great and you're doing so well, but there has to be challenges and rocks in the road.

So name a specific challenge that you had to face with being a Black woman in business and in engineering.

So I would say for me being in engineering, I was the only person of color in all of my classes when I got to my main courses.

So I kind of felt alone sometimes.

So I had to make sure that I talked to my friends who also felt the same way in their classes, as well as my mentors on campus.

And I always felt like I was at home in some type of way.

That's great.

So you're so smart.

I bet you were like a straight-A student.

I actually didn't get that many A's when I was in school, I was more of a B/C student.

I actually failed a couple courses, but I worked really hard.

I was always talking to my professors about how I can improve my grades.

Staying focused, always got my homework done on time.

So those things kind of helped me get to where I was.

So thinking back to when you were my age, how would I be able to know that engineering might be something nice for me?

[Jada] I would say if you love anything STEM related, that would definitely lead toward engineering, or if you just like problem solving.

So engineers work with problem solving, they get a problem, and they figure out where it started and how they can solve it.

And then also if you love working on teams, as an engineer, you're always working on teams.

So if you like teamwork, engineering's probably for you.

[Rylee] So Jada, do you have any words of advice you'd like to share?

[Jada] The first one would definitely be, do what you love.

Start with what you love.

So if you're looking for something in STEM, you know you want to work in that type of field, start with what you love.

Second, I would say, do it.

It seems hard, but once you get into it, keep going.

The hardest part is when you stop and you try to start again.

Third, I would say, don't doubt yourself.

There's always someone, if you look at the excuses that you're about to tell yourself, if you look at that, there's always someone that already did it.

Just use inspiration from other people that you see in history or people that you know.

Talk to them and encourage yourself.

Well, thank you so much Jada for being with me today.

Thank you.

I would just say, make sure that you do whatever you want to do.

Your dreams have no limit!

Thank you, bye.

Bye.

(light upbeat music) Mission accomplished!

[Jada] Yeah!