With hard work and the willingness to perseverence, you can do it.
My name is Aaron and I would love to tell you a little bit about my family. We are from a small town in rural Alabama. The kind of place where education was not generally at the forefront of every one’s mind. Going back at least 3 generations from me, we had bus drivers, carpenters, painters, and other similar jobs but no one in the family with a college education. My mom had me when she was 18 but despite that was able to get a STEM adjacent 2 year degree in radiology right after high school and worked in different doctor’s offices throughout her career doing X-Rays. My aunt also worked toward a degree in a STEM related field and worked as a chemist for many years.
They were the first two people in generations of our family to go to college and both were able to find careers in areas that use science and technology but they were not the last. My first daughter who I had at 17, plus my second cousin who is just three years older than her both decided while in high school that they wanted to become engineers. They both attended the same high school in that same small town. They both finished high school as Salutatorian by studying and working hard. They knew how important getting a scholarship was to completing their goals and proving that they belonged in college classes and fields dominated by men.
My cousin went to Mississippi State on scholarship and was able to complete a bachelor's degree in environmental engineering. She interned and had some paid work while she was in school, building a network for her career early so that when she graduated, she was able to immediately move to North Dakota to work as an environmental engineer for an oil company. While working there she completed her master’s degree. She’s now a 26-year-old engineer with a master’s degree and supervises a team of six people, all men. She is proof that anyone from anywhere can make a career in a STEM field but she will not be the last from our family.
My daughter is 23. She also was Salutatorian in HS and she received a scholarship to Auburn University to study materials engineering. She has completed her bachelor’s degree on time and after she did, she was given a research fellowship that not only pays her to do research for the school, but is paying, in full, for her master’s and PHD if she decides to complete it. She is two month’s away from her master’s and no matter what she decides to do after, she has set herself up to have an awesome career in a STEM field that she has a passion for.
Both of these young women are from a poor area and a family that did not have a history of education. With hard work and the willingness to persevere in areas that have been dominated by men, they have started the process of lifting their quality of life and the family line that will follow. If they can do it, you can to!
