Young Women in STEM Scholarship

Clink. Clank. Clang. The rhythmic echoing sounds of the steel chuan (spatula) and hoak (ladle) cooking the food in the wok by the chefs in the kitchen. The aromatic smell lingering in the air of the stuffy kitchen. That is the nostalgic memory of my childhood and continues to be the sound I hear everywhere. The fast-paced environment of the kitchen is still with me even when I am out of the restaurant as I’ve grown accustomed to hearing it. For as long as I can remember, the restaurant has been where I have spent most of my time. Every day after school, on weekends, and during the summer, I have helped at my parents’ restaurant since I was a young child. I quickly picked up on the functioning well-oiled system that my parents run, starting with taking customer’s order, cooking food, packing orders, to being able to manage the system on my own as my parents step out to run errands. Growing up in this setting, I had to balance assisting at the restaurant, academic studies, extracurricular activities, sport commitment, and volunteering. This has taught me the value of responsibility, communication, time-management, and sacrifice. My upbringing motivates me to continuously work hard towards reaching my goals of making a positive impact one person at a time. The path to education for my parents was a long and continuous one. My parents had to travel very far to school and have only completed some grade school education. After completing some years in school, they had to stop to help on their parents’ farm. After immigrating to the US, they learned English, a continuous learning still occurring now. As a result, as a young child, I only had basic knowledge of English, struggle understanding my teachers, and was unable to articulate my thoughts. Thus, I was placed in English to Speakers of Other Languages in first grade. Once I was able to understand English, I could not help but notice the world around me brightening up. I was able to help my parents converse with others, hold conversations with others, and fully understand each word said. Since then, I have always been interested in absorbing the vast knowledge surrounding me. Even after taking numerous rigorous courses and several summer programs, I am still amazed how much more knowledge there is that I have not yet uncovered. Being an advocate learner is a core part of who I am. I truly believe that to have a fulfilling life, one must always stay curious and dedicate one’s life to continuous learning. Though my parents were not educated beyond grade school, I drew inspiration from their sacrifice of education. They have bestowed upon me a deep gratitude for my community, a passion for learning, and the spirit to pursue my goals. This past summer, I participated in a Girls Who Code Self Immersion Program. To close the gender gap, Girls Who Code host 6-8 weeks long program to teach women coding skills and apply their knowledge towards creating games in Replit. As a member of the Girls Who Code Alumni community, I look forward to fostering a supportive network dedicated to helping other women and non-binary people discover and pursue their interests in technology field through participation in summit to sharing my knowledge in the field. Just like how I was supported greatly from the guidance and support of mentors who have helped me both personally and professionally, I aspire to pay it forward by encouraging other women by being a mentor to others and assisting them in their career growth. By sharing my knowledge, experiences, and lessons learned, I hope to inspire and empower others to reach their full potential and contribute to a more diverse and skilled workforce in society. Joining the Student DELL Helpdesk sophomore year at my school was at first on a whim. However, that whim has now turned into a passion. As I began to work towards my DELL Client Foundations Certificate in 2021, I found myself intrigued by the content and wanting to learn more. Ever since I can remember, math has always been my favorite subject. The satisfaction after solving a problem motivates me to keep applying my knowledge and use critical thinking to find the answer. Not only does my passion for the field propel me to success in information technology, but my goal of becoming a software developer furthermore fuels me. I strongly believe pursuing a bachelor’s degree in computer science is a crucial step towards fulfilling my career aspiration. Over the course of years, I have taken part in several hackathons as well as coding programs and have since realized that computers are essential for many parts of our lives. I plan to be proficient in JavaScript, SQL, and Python whilst earning my computer science degree, thus taking the first steps to becoming a software developer. I aim to stay updated with the latest trends and technologies in the rapidly growing computer science industry. By continuously learning, I aim to bring new ideas to discussions and contribute to making a positive impact on my community as I apply my knowledge to solve global issues. For example, to target the issue food insecurity, I could code programs to analyze the soil characteristics thus providing our team with real-time information to boost their crop yields, which can be further expanded to check the air quality as crop production losses can be alleviated by air quality improvements. In addition, I could take it a step further by using programming combined with science, to ensure that the products produced are perfectly ripe when picked, with no flaws nor pollutants and are full of nutrients. By doing so, computer science can help increase product yield and provide more nutrition thus leading to healthier people.

As a highly motivated, experienced, and committed Cyber Security Analyst, I am passionate about protecting the public from cyber threats and upholding the public trust. My experience in network and data protection will ensure secure access and safety of sensitive data. I am committed to safeguarding the security of the nation and providing solutions that will help in improving information security and keep our country safe. I am also passionate about staying current with the latest cybersecurity trends and technologies to ensure that my academics are current with the latest developments. With my commitment, experience, and passion, I am confident that I can positively protect the nation from cyber threats if I am selected. As a retired us navy sailor, my work serving our country has been exciting and informational. I was able to travel the world and learn new things. Especially as a quartermaster, it was my responsibility to navigate the open seas to keep our military mission on course. Specializing in maps, charts, and oceanography, I worked in the ship’s pilot house, watching the sun rise and set each day. Every Sailor relied on my rates expertise to keep them safe and operational. When you become a Quartermaster, you become the ship’s GPS to keep it on track to reach its destination. In doing this is where I found my love of computer science. I would go down with the Its on my ship to update the vessel navigation systems, and it was while being there I discovered the war on terrorism doesn't just have to be at sea. I can do it from the front lines of the computer science field. In doing so, I can show my peers there are other ways to fight for our country. It was an honor to serve, and I want to continue. That has been my motivation on this career journey. That is also why this scholarship is for me; not only is this opportunity understanding and helpful towards impacting women’s careers, but they also provide enough resources tailored to the best environment for a student to grow their lab environments. I look forward to being considered. WGU has been a fantastic opportunity; so far in my curriculum, I have written scripts to handle data for various applications; operated and coordinated automated networks using PowerShell in active Directories, CLI, datalinks, and circuits. Executed information system diagnostic, corrective, and recovery techniques and efficiently analyzed communication signals. Supplied telecommunications and computer-related training and assistance; carried out preventive and curative maintenance on state-of-the-art equipment in VMware. Finally, I have become familiar with the application of operating and maintaining global satellite telecommunications systems. So far, I’d say the most complex challenge I’ve had to overcome is myself. It’s incredible our ability to get in our way when we allow doubt and fear to infect the mind of a visionary. I’ve spent much time this school year recommitting myself to my goals. I am the first of my family to go to college, to have a career, to leave home for something unknown. Up until this point, I had been acquainted with failure, but never fear. I am the first of many things, but not the first to experience this imposter syndrome. So, I contacted the resources I had available to assist me. I reached out to my program mentor to make a plan to get myself on track, and I sought advice from other women for overcoming self-doubt. I even applied myself wholeheartedly to therapy so that I could crack down on these thoughts that were affecting my ability to perform. Doing these actions allowed me to make the Honor Society at WGU with NSLS and Homeland Security, and I even secured a fellowship with Acuitus for the summer. Coming from a low-income background, we only had government assistance and handouts. I have aunties and uncles who cannot read. I have family members who never went to school past the 3rd grade. I hated this time in my life for so long, and as I turned into an adult, I separated myself from my roots. I had to remember my roots as far as I might run. That is my background, my why. In my opinion, you can’t accomplish anything without having a why. I started to keep quotes on my vision board above my study area from my family and friends, so I’ll never forget the important things; that’s how I’ve managed to overcome and stay on the road less traveled. I made a choice to turn my history and pain into power.

I am Dagmawet Zemedkun, a sophomore majoring in Computer Science at the University of Texas at Dallas. My hobbies are writing and problem-solving. To be honest, problem-solving is not just a hobby but a passion of mine. I often love seeing how something that can be thought of as a big and scary problem can be broken down into small steps which makes the whole problem seem like it was easy, to begin with. If I am not doing these two things, I am watching movies, daydreaming, or reading. Going through the years, I have found many different motivations to achieve something but there has been one constant motivation that has always been there and will remain my motivation forever. This motivation is my family, they have worked hard to help me become a better person as a whole and did their best in the past, and are doing their best now to guide me. I know that without them I would not be a fraction of the person that I am today but it is not just the gratitude that I have for them that is my motivation but the desire to give them everything that they never had. If I could do anything with my life, then it would be that. I come from a low-income family with many parents having to support three children and a grandchild, they have had to make a lot of sacrifices, and my wish is to one day give them everything they had to give up for us. STEM, where do I begin? I love how STEM is not just concrete but changes with discoveries, or how one can create new things, or how all of the acronyms in STEM are used in technology, and many more, but if I had to choose one thing that excites me about STEM, it would be how difficult it is and how it requires you to have depth knowledge about all the topics in the field you are studying in order to actually state that you have learned it and advance to the next topic. To explain what I mean by this, let's take the M part of STEM which stands for Mathematics. I have just learned Calculus this past semester and although it covers the previous math that has been taught, it needs to be approached using a different way of thinking. If someone does not know how to do arithmetic with fractions, factors, conjugates, and other processes, they will have a hard time with Calculus because they did not learn what they needed to have learned in previous sections of math which are needed when applying the new thinking process calculus requires of you. Although I cannot state explicitly the positive impact I could make with a job in information technology, as a Computer Science major, I know that through the use of software, many problems can be solved. I thrive on being a problem-solver and one of the biggest things about learning Computer Science that I love is how it is about conceptualizing the topic and finding ways of addressing it through the use of the software. By implementing working software, I would use what I know to help me navigate problems and put forth my best effort to solve such problems. The biggest challenge I had to overcome happened throughout this past semester. Starting my first semester as a sophomore, I had expected things to be more difficult than previous semesters and they were but it was more than I thought. All my friends had similar classes which were different from mine so even when I thought about asking for help, we were tackling different things even though we were taking the same course making it harder to ask for help. By my third week, I was completely burned out and I did not know where I was going. At the same time, I was feeling maybe Computer Science was not for me and that maybe I should change to another major. On the other hand, I have a side to me that likes challenges and was pushing me to just keep going one step at a time and I will get there. While I kept going and tried different methods, I learned that the biggest problem was not the course but how I approached all my classes. I was internalizing all of my struggles and not asking for as much help as I could have. After realizing this, I slowly started going for help and taking more meaningful breaks when I needed them instead of when I thought I needed them. I honestly thought I was not going to make it but I needed up passing all of my classes, and even though this was good, I am more appreciative of the side of me that kept me going.

I am 22 year old Asian student who recently came to America for better education.I am freshman majoring in Computer Science at Queens college, CUNY. Unjust coup occurred in my country, Burma, over 1 year ago. Schools and universities were all shut down and civil disobedience movements are taking place all over the country. The whole country is suffering from dictators who only like to keep the benefits for themselves. The leaders of legitimate government were unlawfully arrested by dictators who claimed that election results are rigged. It hurts me more since that was my first time being able to vote for my country election. I will continue fighting for my country's democracy in any way that I can . Whenever I feel down, I always think of my friends who are left behind in the country. I help them in ways that I can and being a part of the protest also motivates me. If I could do anything with my life, I want to be the biggest supporter for my country. Internet services in my country are shut down frequently by dictators and we have been urging Elon Musk to provide us with starlink internet services so that people in my country can continue to stay online and spread the right information. I want to be able to become tech genius like Elon Musk who is able to provide internet service for Ukraine. The amazing thing about STEM is problems can be investigated and solved by science , technology with various methods of mathematics. I think being in STEM major builds resilience and makes people lives better. Scientists, engineers, mathematicians , IT people are constantly trying to make our planet the better place.STEM skills can be used to produce better food , cure diseases, fight crime or educate other people. I believe the whole world is built by STEM. I want to make positive impact on the world by building better future.Using artificial intelligence and datas in information technology still feels like a dream to me. It makes me think how the world is so advanced by looking at all the technologies. "Progress: but still many obstacles" is how most people would describe LGBTQ in STEM. People are still discriminated and harassed fro being a member of LGBTQ community. As an asian , I am not satisfied with the fact that Taiwan is the only country in Asia legalizing same sex marrriage.Burma's sexuality have been described as being "extremely conservative" and I have been wanting to make positive change for our people.Supporting every human who come out and accepting for who they are is the least I can do.As a queer person, I do not want to live in fear and criticized for being who I am.My parents’ American dream is to have stable life with decent house and car. My kind of dream is to live my life doing what I love and I wanna keep doing that forever. I am here to fight for my equality because I believe that we are all born equally but we are not treated equally. My career goal is to be User Experience designer. I would like to be in charge of working with the products which incorporate Artificial Intelligence since I have great interest in AI too. My goal is to help human interact with these tools in order to develop functionality that fits our needs . Majoring in computer science will better help me with AI field. I want us to be center of systems and technologies we build. I was born in a country where there is no computer science or IT related major or minor in universities and colleges. It was depressing to think that my chance to pursue computer science academically was so low . I have always dreamed of coming to USA and attend my dream college. Over the past few years, the education system in my country , Burma(Myanmar) has reached dead-end due to political coup and enormous covid-19 spread. Most importantly, I do not want to reside in a country where my dreams are invalid. After all the struggles, I finally decided to come to USA so that I can transform my dream into reality. Life is short and I don’t want to keep wasting any part of it. What would my life be if I don’t have the courage to attempt anything? This is the question I always asked myself whenever I become uncertain about things in my life.I am going to do my best so that my college life is meaningful and exciting.I am ready to leave behind my past, deep dive into my present and fully prepare for my upcoming future. There’s no turning back in this journey to my dream and I really want to succeed.