When Suneera Regmi enrolled at the National Institute of Aeronautical Engineering College in Dehradun to pursue a degree in Aerospace Engineering, she became a laughing stock. And why wouldn’t she be? She was the only woman to study Aerospace Engineering among her peers.
Being the only female, she felt a predominance of males in her class and was almost at a point of dropping out. She was the only girl graduating in the crowd of 44 male classmates. When she did her post-graduation, she was the only female in the class of over 60 students. Despite such unfavorable situations and companions, she became the first Nepali Female aerospace engineer because of her willpower and strong mentality.
Regmi worked as the only female aerospace engineer at the Nepal Airlines Corporation for the past decade. She held the command consistently as the lone female. After almost 12 years of being the only female representative in Nepal for aerospace engineers, another female was added to her department at last. Suneera Regmi isn’t just the only female aerospace engineer but the first of them. She is the first woman who was licensed by Nepal Engineering Council in 2008.
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When she first began studying engineering, she had experiences that differed from men in her batch. When she was attending the examination for “Operation Engineer,” she was asked whether she had entered the right hall; the invigilator’s skeptical eyes were on the only female in the crowd of 25 men. However, when the result came from the open application for the position, she was also included amongst four selected candidates. She had passed a competition without any quotas or public service examination.
She made a name for herself in an open competition. She worked for 10 years in the position that she received under the operation department of the corporation as an Aerospace Engineer. Suneera Regmi chose a subject that Nepali people weren’t aware of and faced difficulties when it came to seeking a job. There were no facilities for working in your expertise at the time. She even worked without pay in Buddha air for almost a year. According to Regmi, the field is limited to airlines in Nepal, and the subject has yet to be branched out further.
Even at present, many are unclear on what an Aerospace Engineer does. As per Suneera Regmi, Senior Operation Engineer, their job is to guide the crew if the engine shuts off. With their guidance, the pilot takes them to the simulator and verifies. Like any other vehicle, an airplane also has a test drive without any passengers. These test flights are done with her team in them. According to her, the main job of an aerospace engineer is related to the development of an aircraft and a spacecraft. It is a mixture of both aircraft and spacecraft engineering.
The first Nepali aerospace engineer has planned on completing her Ph.D. and being the first Nepali woman to walk on the moon’s surface or go to space.
