Learn from your experiences.
Hey there!
Other girls once stood where we are now. The fields of the sciences, technologies, engineering, and mathematics were male-only areas at one point in time, a time that was not long ago. The doors were locked for girls, so they had to charge through them, unpick the locks, or climb in through the windows. These girls had to light the torches that brighten our paths and allow us to simply walk through the doors that were shut for them. We stand on the shoulders of History written by other women, and it is our job to pass it along. The important thing we need to remember is that it is not the responsibility of just one girl; we all bear the obligation to carry the stories of those before us together.
Taking classes with such heavy workloads can be terrifying. The material is complex, the labs are lengthy, and the calculations are no walk in the park. It can be daunting at times, and you may feel so isolated, but I am certain that you are not the only one who feels that way. You have an entire crowd of girls on your side. Women who are doctors, technicians, and chemists who once held that torch and passed it down to those studying to be engineers, developers, and professors of the world. One day it will be up to us to take the torch that we possess and pass it down to the future dentists, mathematicians, and programmers. We will take what we learnt from our experiences, good and bad, and share them with the next generation of women in STEM. It is up to us to help them understand why they were able to study in a STEM program, how their journey counts, and that they are still allowed to have interests outside of the walls of their field.
In case nobody told you today: I am proud of how far you have come, and though I may not have personally met you, thank you for supporting me like how I support you.
