Personal Statement: Pursuing A Career

As a child I loved playing dress up, I loved going to Tea Parties, and I loved playing with Legos. When I was little I found no problem with doing science experiments on my Barbie’s, or having princesses play Legos; however, as I entered kindergarten and first grade I found those two worlds weren’t supposed to coexist. Girls were supposed to play with girls toys, and boys were to play with boy toys. I decided, that was best and gave up my Lego set to the boy next door and focused on doing girl things. Next came second and third grade, where teachers begin to ask, “What do you want to be when you grow up”? Boys say things like: a military member, a lawyer, an engineer, a fireman, a scientist, a cop, and the list goes on and on. Whereas girls are kept more in a box with only certain professions being traditionally appropriate. I decided, that was correct and that I would be a science teacher so I could still be a part of the scientific world I so thoroughly enjoyed, yet still be traditionally
I had no idea what I wanted. I figured I would just peruse a teaching degree, but three days before my payment was do at UNC Charlotte I decided to pull the plug. I knew I wouldn’t be happy teaching children for the rest of my life. It is something I enjoyed but I just wasn’t meant to be a teacher. So I decided to take a year off from heavy academics. I worked, I volunteered, and I took some general education classes at Wake Tech and tried to find a career that would make me happy. Little did I know that this was the best decision I had ever made. There I met professors who had a similar experience to me, being told they could not be in the STEM program because they were women; however, they had found a mentor that inspired them to be in that field. I had obviously heard and read about famous female scientists, but truthfully, nothing is as impactful as meeting someone who shares your story and understands the struggles that you are about to