Being a chemistry major is something that is very important to me. It is a huge part of my life and a big reason why I am who I am today. Being a woman in STEM is a big part of who I am, and this is what it means to me.
Growing up, my mom always talked about being a chemist. I remember celebrating mole day (October 23 from 6:02 am to 6:02 pm after Avagadro’s number) and pi day as early as sixth grade. I grew up loving math and when my brother got into the local STEM high school in my home town, I knew I wanted nothing more than to get into the same school.
Being at the Math and Science center half of the day while in high school was always my favorite time at school. There the teachers helped to foster my learning and my love of math and science just grew further. I loved being surrounded by other students who had the same love of math and science and who were just as motivated to learn as I was. My junior year of high school was when I first started thinking about what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. Because of my calculus teacher, my original plan was to do something related to math. I was good at it and it came easy to me. That was until I took a food science class later that same year. I’ve always had a complicated relationship with food but learning about the structures of it and how much about a food could change by just changing one part, I thought “What if I stick with this and see where this goes?”
After taking that food science class I started doing more research and learned that best way to go about getting a degree in food science was to get a major in chemistry and then go further on to grad school. To me, this made sense. When everyone at the Math and Science center took chemistry their sophomore year, I was the one who was helping all my friends through the class. As you can imagine, my mom was very happy that I was following in her footsteps.
Flash forward to college and I met some amazing people. I couldn’t have asked for better professors from both the math and chemistry departments. Up until now, I had never had any issues with being a woman in STEM. There was no judgement and it all seemed very normal. I still remember the first time that I didn’t feel welcome in class due to being a girl. Let me set the scene: I am in my calculus based physics class my sophomore year in college. I am the only girl in the class and everyone else in the class is an engineering major; except for me. It was a small class so starting at the beginning of the semester not many people wanted to answer questions. I had taken a physics class in high school so I was familiar with some of the material. Because of this, I answered a lot of the questions starting out. And there was no problem with this until the day that I got a question wrong.
I made one mistake on an integral because it had been about two years since I had taken calculus. On the next question that was asked, the guy in my class who answered specifically emphasized the part of the answer that I had gotten wrong. I had never felt more unwelcome in a class before. And from that day, I barely answered any questions. Why would I when I was worried about my mistakes being thrown back in my face? There were times that when I did raise my hand to answer a question, my professor would completely ignore that my hand was up and would wait for one of the boys to answer the question. Why would I want to participate in class if that was how I was treated? Because of this, there was nothing more validating than when we would spend close to half an hour on an example problem in class and no one could get it right. No one except for me. Even if I had the answer right, I would still refuse to answer in case I was wrong.
I will be forever grateful that I haven’t experienced anything worse. I am thankful for the women who came before and all their work that they did to prove that women have a place in fields of science. I wouldn’t be able to do what I love today if it wasn’t for them.
I love being a woman in STEM because of the sense of accomplishment that I get from solving questions that other people can’t. I love getting to explore new things and test out new theories. I love being able to prove people wrong when they underestimate me. I love getting to take pictures of solutions I made because I think the colors are pretty. I love getting to show up to lab in cute hairstyles and clothes and I love studying with my perfectly written and organized notes because you can be both girly and a scientist. You don’t have to choose. You can be smart and girly and curious and imaginative. While being a woman in STEM is a big part of who I am, I can still do and be so much more.