Women In STEM Series – Meet Julea Chappa

Meet Julea Chappa! She is a Junior here at CCU majoring in Business Administration with a minor in Marketing. She is also planning on receiving an Emphasis in both Computer Information Systems (CIS) and Economics. Growing up, her favorite subject was math and she loved to make and sell things to her neighbors. She considered going into math but ultimately she chose business since there is more opportunity there and she loves this field in general!

Julea’s mom inspired her into pursing her career. Although she had a natural knack for doing business, her mom was able to tell her about DECA and its benefits. When Julea joined DECA in high school, she loved being able to learn about business.

Julea is an analytical person who loves the logical part of STEM in general as well as her field. She gave an example of how social media provides analytical data that helps one see trends and improvements that they can make through a single post. She also loves to examine and study the consumers behavior to see how certain aspects of marketing provides better results depending on what you are selling.

One thing Julea wants others to know about her is that she wants to be able to share more of her passions to others. She is also helping to run a non-profit organization to stop human trafficking in India.

To Julea, being a Woman in STEM is a really cool thing. Not many women have a CIS background, so not only is it a great way to boost her application, but the knowledge is very valuable to Julea.  Julea also mentioned that this was not a normal path that many women took but as the years have gone by, more and more women have gone into STEM and Julea wanted to be apart of that movement.

She wants to be an example to others wanting to go into STEM but also let them know that there are resources available for other women to be successful.

Some advice that Julea would give to others is that there are many benefits into going into STEM especially as a woman that includes many opportunities as well.

Her favorite class at CCU has been Business 101 with Professor Miller. She took this class her freshman year, but it has instilled a greater passion for business within her. Also, Professor Miller gave her so many key insights that have helped her so much. Some challenges that Julea has noticed is that even though there are a lot of females at CCU. There is still a male dominance in most of her STEM classes which kind of makes her feel like she stands out more. She feels that there is more judgement and pressure in making sure that others know that she is capable and knows what she is doing in class. She doesn’t want people to think she is inadequate or below others knowledge.

Lastly, Julea is able to incorporate her faith in her life by being intentional, not just using her gifts for her benefit but to serve and glorify Lord. She also wants to use her career as an outlet to share her faith and the importance of her faith.

It was such a pleasure to interview Julea and get to know her story! Stay tuned for more stories!