One good thing that has come out of the COVID-19 pandemic is showing how critical STEM fields are to our society. Adapting to the pandemic has put STEM fields in the spotlight for people entering the workforce to see and realize their importance. We’ve seen how scientists have been working towards a vaccine and how hard hospitals have been working to care for sick people. Still, we’ve also seen how engineers have adapted to make filtration systems and ventilators for workplaces, data analytics helping businesses improving their operations, and computer science programs showing the importance of artificial intelligence for society. Especially in STEM fields, the pandemic has demonstrated that human needs and technology are intertwined, and adapting to integrate technology into a post-pandemic era is the future of work. Schools, hospitals, and businesses that could adjust their operations to an online world have been able to move more rapidly and remain open during the pandemic compared to those who didn’t have the ability and needed to shut down. STEM fields have been able to thrive by incorporating technology like this. As society shifts to a post-pandemic area, STEM occupations will lead the way in showing people how to adapt to a community focused on incorporating technology to thrive. In a post-pandemic area, the need for STEM fields, artificial intelligence, and machine learning will increase, allowing for business to increase production, and continue to grow in a new digital age society.

As a college student, this makes me laugh. Participation is important for classes and learning. However, I don't think participation should be counted towards final grades, especially if the percentage is around 15-20% and the course isn't one that helps develop speaking skills. My grade should reflect only on my learning and tests' quality, not on participation and showing up to class. I find this meme funny and relatable, with the humor making the situation more bearable and enjoyable.

STEM education and programs create the next generation of critical thinkers and inventors, making it one of the most important fields for our economy. Biology is an essential part of STEM fields because it's the basic foundation that shapes professional careers, including chemists, environmentalists, engineers, teachers, doctors, and scientists. Biology has helped us understand our bodies, provided answers to small- and large-scale problems, teaches the understanding of basic living, answers fundamental questions, and paves ways for scientific information. These are all reasons why I believe biology is an important part of STEM fields. Biology is one of my majors, and I'm focusing on two aspects of the area, evolutionary biology and genetics, molecular and cellular biology. I am also majoring in biological anthropology with a minor in criminal justice and a forensic science certificate. Combined, these programs will allow me to have a successful career in forensic anthropology. STEM fields are the basics for forensic anthropology, combining biology, math, chemistry, physics, and forensic science. Forensic anthropology is a vital field in human identification. It combines all these fields to create a biological profile of human remains. We can determine someone's age at death, height, weight, race, sex, and ethnicity from skeletons. We can even determine where someone grew up, their social status, and reveal childhood injuries and traumas. I hope to build a career working in a human remains laboratory working to help identify skeletons from this degree. Specifically, I want to work with NamUs. The NamUs Unidentified persons database was a collaboration of the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) and other scientists working to solve the increasing number of missing, unidentified, and unclaimed person cases in America. NamUs combines work from forensic anthropologists, fingerprint examiners, DNA analysis, and dental experts to help identify victims. With advances in technology, forensic science, and STEM fields, I want to work in this program to identify every set of remains. According to the NIJ, it's estimated that 4,400 unidentified bodies are recovered each year. Over 40,000 sets of remains still need to be identified in the U.S. STEM programs are essential in this field, and I hope to use what I've learned to help lower the number above and give families the closure they deserve.

Despite having specific goals I've set for myself in my life and career, I am not a confident person. I know what I want to do academically, but I've always doubted myself and my abilities, thinking I will never be good enough or that I wasn't talented or smart enough to do it. I have also struggled with depression and anxiety, and because of my fears of failing, I was considering not going to college. However, the summer after my senior year of high school, I decided that I wanted more, and I didn't want to end up not doing things in life because I was scared. I enrolled in community college to start taking my generals, and from there, I decided to enroll in a four-year university to finish my bachelor's degree. Taking this step was incredibly hard for me, financially and mentally, as I still had negative thoughts I was carrying around. COVID-19 hit after I had finished getting my associate's degree and was transferring schools to obtain my bachelor's degree. I expected that everything would be fine, but COVID ended up affecting my life more than I thought it would. Getting a degree that requires laboratory work, collaboration, and hands-on experience became harder to obtain. My mental health was also starting to take a toll. I was experiencing more depressive episodes, anxiety and was allowing fear to control my daily thoughts. As a waitress, it affected my ability to work and pay for schooling, along with my living expenses. However, the most heart-breaking thing COVID-19 has done is separate me from my family, especially my grandparents. With both of them being high risk, it's impossible to see them, especially my grandpa, who had tuberculous last year and recovered from pneumonia when the pandemic first started. I go to school in a big city, and I knew that I had a higher chance of contracting the virus, and I could risk exposing him to it. My grandpa was the one who encouraged me to go to school and has always been my biggest supporter. Ever since I was little, he has always been my favorite person, and we have so many memories together fishing, playing softball, and watching crime shows together-which led me to my current degree path. My first semester at college was not great. Classes were online, COVID-19 cases were increasing, I couldn't see my family, and I was beginning to experience more signs of depression. I had also started at a new University and wasn't making any new friends due to the pandemic's impacts. Thoughts of not being good enough, talented enough, and being alone forever started filling my head, and I started struggling academically. As I began to struggle academically, my negative thoughts seemed to grow bigger. I also felt alone and was personally at an all-time low. For me, it was like I was taking a giant step backward in my life. Thankfully, I was not stuck with these thoughts forever. I noticed that mental health was starting to be discussed more in the news and articles, and I began to see more posts online. I noticed how more and more people were starting to post about their struggles mentally during the pandemic, and I started to realize that I was not alone and that I had options to help me. I learned about opportunities to help me that didn't involve traditional therapy, as it scared me. There were tons of companies and resources that allowed me to text/call people when I needed extra support for a particular day. Another thing that was important to me was the number of online companies offering free calls and face time with people. The use of technology has allowed me to stay connected with my family safely and feel less alone. There have also been more opportunities to do things virtually instead of canceling events due to the pandemic. Now I've been able to do the things that I love and make me happy, like watching sports, seeing art shows, attending conferences on my career field, and practicing in school clubs. While I still feel depressed at times, I feel more open to talking about it, and I noticed that it's not holding me back as it did. I've learned from this that I will have setbacks in my life, both physically and mentally, but the important thing is that I can't let them stop me. I've also learned that the world is a lot more caring and understanding than I thought it was. Many people worldwide are experiencing the same things as me, and that people are willing to help me out, and I need to ask for help sometimes. It doesn't make me weak to seek help and feel better. I've also learned to expect setbacks and plan for what happens if they occur. I have an app on my phone that allows me to discuss my issues with a professional when I need to, or I can facetime with my family and connect with them. During this current semester, I feel healthy and engaged. I'm succeeding academically, I feel more confident about myself, and I know that I will do great things in my career because I'm already making things happen.

My life-changing perspective came when I was a senior in high school. I come from a tiny town where everyone knows each other; the city is so small that our mayor is also a pasture at church, the high school cross country coach, and a substitute teacher. As seniors, my classmates had started looking into colleges, careers and applying for scholarships. I wasn't. In my family, college wasn't something we talked about, and if I wanted to go, it was entirely up to me to figure everything out. My parents didn't go to college, and they didn't have the money to pay for me to go. I should also mention that the career I was interested in wasn't typical; colleges in my state didn't even have a program for it. I didn't know anybody pursuing the field, and I didn't know anybody who knew what college offered it. At this time, I was also struggling with my mental health, and I decided that I wasn't cut out for college and that it was ridiculous of me to think I would be able to pursue a career in forensic anthropology. This career was a particular and required courses in biology, chemistry, math, anthropology, forensic science, and criminal justice while also having good reading, writing, and communication skills. I didn't think I would succeed at it, and I decided not to go to college. My guidance counselor suggested going to a community college and getting an associate's degree because having an associate's degree was better than not having one. During my senior year, my class faced two tragedies. The first was when one of my classmates died in a plane accident. He had grown up around planes and flying as his dad and grandpa were both piolets, and he had gotten his flying license that year. One night when he was flying, the engine stalled, and he crashed into a river. His passenger survived, but my classmate was carried away by the current. By the time his body was found, there was nothing they could do. This moment dramatically changed our town, as nothing like this had ever happened before. The family was well known in the community, and he was one of the kindest, most helpful men in town. This loss was hard for my classmates and me. Later that year, the second tragedy happened. A close friend of mine was home one night with her mom when her mom's ex-boyfriend came to the house. He was an abusive man who had been apart of their family for years, and her mom was finally able to leave him. His plan that night was a murder-suicide. He shot my friend's mom first and then broke into my friend's bedroom to shoot her before turning the gun on himself. My friend and her mom died before help could get there, and for the second time that year, our class was grieving. My friend was brilliant, beautiful, and kind, but she was also determined. She was accepted into an excellent private college, and she was focusing on getting a degree and making a better life for herself and her mom. Both of my classmate's deaths were hard for me because I was so close to them. I felt that they were cheated at life because neither of them got to experience it, and they were both individuals that were going to make the most of it. At this moment, my perspective changed. I was sad and angry that my friends weren't able to live their lives and do the things they loved, but at the same time, I wasn't living life how I wanted and doing the things that I loved. My perspective on college and life changed. I learned that we don't know how long we're going to live, and I wanted to make the most of my life doing the things I love because we never know how long a person has. I knew what I wanted to do for a career, and I wanted to pursue it, even though it wasn't the easiest. For financial reasons, I decided to go to community college; however, I agreed that I would transfer to my current college to finish my bachelor's degrees after two years. My new perspective is benefiting me now because not only has my mental health started improving, but I also feel more confident about my education, and I am very excited about my career. I have many goals that I want to achieve. I want to continue my education by going to graduate school to get both an M.A and a Ph.D. and focus on research opportunities. I'm glad I realized how vital school would be for me and how important it was always to live life to its full potential.

I first found my love for STEM courses in my high school biology classes studying reproduction and cell division and genetics. As my high school career went on, I broaden my coursework to math, chemistry, and forensic science, eventually focusing on applied forensic science and later forensic anthropology. STEM courses are essential because they are incorporated into every field of study in some way, shape, or form, and careers and education in STEM fields are critical for our nation's growth on both small and large scales. More importantly, encouraging more women to be apart of the STEM field will help close the gender gap and lead to more discoveries that will improve our society. I am passionate about STEM because I want to be a part of something so crucial to our community, and I want to encourage other women to do the same. STEM is also vital for my academic and career goals as a forensic anthropologist. Forensic anthropologists need to be well rounded in math, science, organic chemistry, physics, and calculus, along with good reading, writing, and communication skills. Academically, I am surrounded by many different field components, taking courses in genetics, molecular biology, chemistry, physics, statistics, calculus, and forensic science. I want to continue my STEM courses at the University Of Tennessee Knoxville to attain an M.A degree and Ph.D. in forensic and biological anthropology. My STEM studies will prepare me for a successful career and help me achieve a specific set of goals I have set because I have been introduced to many different components of the STEM field. The detailed plan I want to achieve is advancing how we identify and classify skeletal remains. Forensic anthropologists establish an individual's biological profile from a skeleton, including age at death, height, weight, race, sex, and ethnicity in current and ancient remains. They can also describe where the induvial grew up, what social class they belonged to, diet, disease, and injuries a person attained throughout their lifetime. Currently, forensic anthropologists are using stable isotope analysis and DNA recovery analysis to help identify remains. I am passionate about improving the way we identify remains because the United States suffers from an increasing number of missing and unidentified person cases. My goal is to work with law enforcement and The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NameUs) to help solve this crisis and raise awareness on the issue. According to NamUs, 600,000 individuals go missing each year, along with 4,400 unidentified bodies recovered. Approximately about 1000 of those bodies remain unidentified after one year and eventually turn into cold cases and are stored away. NamUs has partnered with the National Institution of Justice (NIJ) to help solve this issue, but approximately 40,000 sets of remains still need to be identified in the United States alone. As a forensic anthropologist, my goal is to put a face and a name to the remaining unidentified bodies using new technology. I believe that each set of remains has a story and deserves to be identified. Each skeleton was once an induvial, who has a family member or loved one who is still grieving and looking for them. Overall, my goal is to use the skills I've learned in my STEM courses to improve human identification and apply that to help the NameUs program, so families can get closure instead of their loved ones being forgotten in storage.