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February 10, 2003
A: FROM MENTOR DENISE HARBERT
IN IL
Hi Temikia!
This is a great question, particularly because most people
probably think
that modeling and SET don't have much in common. I have a
story with all
sorts of great lessons for everyone...
I changed high schools between my Junior and Senior years.
When I got to my
new school, I met some people and got along OK. One day, I
chatted with a
quiet, over-tall girl in my accelerated calculus class (AP
BC). Once I got
her talking, she seemed really nice. Later, another girl warned
me that
everybody hated her and I wouldn't make friends if I hung
out with her. She
verbally bashed this girl who seemed perfectly nice to me.
I was horrified,
so I got the quiet girl's phone number and started hanging
out with her.
The more I got to know her, the more I liked her. The more
I hung out with
her, the more I heard from everyone around me about how horrible
she was. I
didn't get it.
We discovered we had the same taste in music - '80s rock -
so I gave her an
extra Poison/Tesla concert ticket that I had, forced her to
dress up, and
dragged her off to the show. We weren't in our seats for 5
minutes when one
of the men on the road crew glanced at her and stopped dead
in his tracks.
He arranged for us to get into the "meet-and-greet"
where there was a
publicity event. Suddenly I was in a world of photographers
and journalists
and rock stars, all of whom wanted to know who she was. Successful,
confident men told her she was beautiful, when all of the
high school boys
we knew had verbally shredded her. One of the guitarists in
Tesla engrossed
her in conversation and eventually convinced her to have some
pictures
taken at a modeling agency. She did and was shocked when they
called her
for a job. Then another. Then another. The painfully introverted
girl who
everyone treated with unsurpassed cruelty was suddenly getting
paid to model.
When we were close to graduation, tons of boys confessed to
her that they
had "worshipped" her since they first saw her. All
those years of cruelty
were the result of fear: she was smart, artistic, kind-hearted,
and
beautiful. People felt inferior to her, so they lashed out
and started
nasty rumors about her to make themselves feel better. She
told the
"confessors" to get lost, then sobbed about it to
me. I am so grateful that
I followed my instincts about her because she turned out to
be a really
good friend.
She went to college and got her biggest modeling "break"
not only because
of her looks, but also because of her knowledge of SET. She
got hired as an
auto show model. Auto manufacturers had discovered that putting
beautiful
women in Academy award quality evening dresses and having
them talk about
the horsepower, fuel injection, etc. on their newest vehicles
is an
excellent way to get men to buy expensive cars. She toured
with the auto
show every summer and used her modeling money to put herself
through
college, where she took a lot of SET courses and eventually
graduated with
a Bachelor's degree (4 years) in business. She wanted to know
how the cars
worked to be better at her modeling job, so she has knowledge
of mechanical
engineering. She also wanted to learn what to do with all
the money she
was making, which is how she ended up in business.
She has been modeling cars for 13 years is still my friend.
She is lucky to
have such a long career - most models are "old news"
within 3 years.
Modeling has been great for her - she makes a lot of money
and meets a lot
of famous people - but there are down sides. She doesn't trust
easily
because most people in her business only want something from
her. She still
struggles with everyday people gawking at her and treating
her badly and
still has trouble finding men with enough self-confidence
to date her. The
job itself also has negatives - living out of a suitcase,
feeling like an
object, being poked and prodded in private places during custom
dress
fittings and wax and laser hair removals, wearing heavy and/or
uncomfortable clothes/jewelry while standing in heels for
10+ hours at a
time, constantly counting calories and watching the scale,
having teeth
capped, getting jaw pain from all the smiling, memorizing
scripts and
learning all about several new cars each year, being around
people using or
selling drugs, etc. It's hard work that I could never do,
even if I had the
right look.
What you might find most valuable is that she has always used
her SET
skills to protect herself. She knows that when her modeling
career is over,
she can go back to college, get another degree, and use her
brains to
pursue a different career. That has allowed her to make decisions
in her
modeling career that others have been afraid to make. She
threatens to
leave when people try to peer pressure her into doing things
that are bad
for her. She is keenly aware of her health. Fortunately, auto
models are
not required to be as thin as runway models. Even so, she
stays on the
heavy side of the "acceptable" weight range (which
is still thinner than
normal). She avoids people involved in drugs and has avoided
cosmetic
surgeries that have potential health risks. (In particular,
she has never
gotten breast implants or Botox/collagen injections. She has
read enough
research to know that some physicians suspect they may increase
cancer
risks). She has used her business skills to invest her money
wisely and
already has her retirement savings.
The morals to this story are:
1. Don't judge people by what they look like or by what people
say about
them. Listen to what they say and watch what they do, then
make a judgement.
2. Modeling careers are short in comparison to other careers,
so
acknowledge to yourself that you will not be modeling for
a lifetime.
3. Have a back-up plan to your modeling dreams and keep your
eye on a
second career choice.
4. Don't risk your life to stay in a modeling career longer
than you should.
5. Knowing something about SET can help you get and keep a
modeling job,
particularly if you model for manufacturers.
6. Modeling can help pay for a SET education as a second career.
7. Knowing something about SET can protect you from people
who would
destroy you for their own gain.
Good luck in pursuing your dreams!
********************
February 7, 2003
A: FROM MENTOR SUZANNE FRANKS
IN KS
Temikia, I think there are two important ways that science,
math, and
engineering relate to a career in modeling.
First, if you become a model and have a successful career,
you are going to
make lots and lots of money. Now, do you want to know nothing
about money,
finances, money management, and have to rely on someone else
to take care
of all your money for you? And have to hope that they will
be honest, and
not rip you off? Many times I hear about pop stars or actors
or models who made
a lot of money but lost a great deal because their money managers
were not
honest people. So, you want to keep taking math in high school,
and you
want to get some kind of training in accounting, finance,
business math, etc. so
that you can be your own money manger, or at least know enough
to know when
someone is trying to cheat you. Also you want to be a shrewd
negotiator for
your fees and so on.
Now, secondly, science or engineering training could be very
important,
because even though you want to be a model, not every one
who wants to be one gets
to do so, or gets to do so and make enough money to live off
of. Even for
successful models, modeling careers are very short, since
in our society we are so
fixated on youth. So you want something to fall back on if
your modeling career does
not take off, or something to pick up on after you are done
with your modeling
career.
Modeling can be very exciting but it can also be very hard
on you. Many
models develop eating disorders because the demands for models
to be so extremely
thin go against the natural shape of a real woman's body,
which is to be
curvy and full, not straight and thin like a man's body. To
maintain the ideal
shape that is in demand for models, you almost are required
to have an eating disorder,
or at least to be very unhealthy in your eating, unless you
are magically
blessed with a genetic inheritance that makes you look like
an ultrathin adolescent
girl even when you are a grown woman.
So there's a third way science relates - you could become
a scientist or a
physician who researches the effects that the presssures and
demands on
models have on their health.
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