After changing schools four times, including moving from Minnesota to Pennsylvania after freshman year, transitioning from rejecting my multiracial and multiculturalism from a young age to now fully embracing my identity, and overcoming a severe eating disorder, I’ve learned three important things about change: Change is inevitable. I’ve encountered many people who have lived in the same house since they were born and have been at the same school with the same people for the entirety of their lives. These people, many of them my friends who are freshly graduated and now going off to college, are encountering their first big change, and getting hit hard. No matter how long you stay stagnant, there will always be change to end it. Everything happens for a reason. Many people, including myself, do not naturally react positively to change, as it often happens without warning and seemingly for the worst. I dreaded moving to Pennsylvania and resented my parents for it, but now looking back, so many great things have come of it that I never could've expected. I didn't know it at the time, but it's what I needed. How you experience change depends on your mindset. My mother, who has endured much more change than I have (losing her father at a young age, immigrating to the US shortly after, and more as she grew older), never viewed change as the end of the world. She's always had the mindset towards change that it’s taken me so many years to develop: change is inevitable, and that everything happens for a reason. My mother and not only accepts change when it comes, she embraces it. Learning from my mother and my own past experiences, I now tackle any change I face with acceptance and optimism. Next up: going away to college.

My father, the most generous and hardworking person I know, got his pilot's license when he was just sixteen years old. His favorite hobby came to an end some years later when his vision had deteriorated so much that he was no longer cleared to fly. He would tell me that "back in his day," corrective lenses weren't allowed and that he needed to have 20/20 vision to fly. Growing up hearing my father's stories, I had always wanted to follow in his footsteps and start flying as early as I could. I took my first lesson in the dead of Minnesota winter at fourteen years old. I remember my hands feeling almost frostbitten, and I couldn’t stop squinting as the reflection of the midday sun on the snow-covered fields below us was nearly blinding. Despite all of this, what I most clearly remember was having the time of my life. Unfortunately for my plan to get my license as soon as I was old enough, just like my father had, the next summer was when my family decided to move halfway across the country to semi-rural Pennsylvania. Although this was a hectic time in my life and caused a hiatus in my flying progress, I have since gotten back on track flying a Cessna 150 at a small airport right down the road from where I now live. Shortly after joining the Quakertown Airport, where I now fly, I learned about a widespread flight school tradition that they partake in: solo shirt cutting. This tradition began back before today's improved headset technology, when instructors had to tug on the back of students' shirts to get their attention while flying. After completing their first solo flight, students would cut out the back of their shirts to symbolize the absence of their instructor and the shirt tugging that was once necessary. The walls of the airport lobby are decorated with this cut-out shirt fabric, each piece personalized with the names of the students and the date they took their first solo flight. After waiting in the lobby each day examining these hanging shirts, I found only one name that could have been a girl. One day before a lesson, pointing at the only shirt that didn’t have a definite boys name, I asked my flight instructor, “is that Jamie a girl?” He replied that it was not, confirming that none of the prized solo shirts belonged to any female pilot. As an engineering major, I feel a huge push toward increasing the number of women in STEM fields. Aviation, like these fields, is heavily male-dominated. Although aviation and STEM fields are closely related, I don’t feel this same push to even out the male to female ratio in the flying world. In the coming years, on top of gaining a bachelor's and masters degrees in engineering, I plan to get my pilot’s license, join Air Force Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (AFROTC) at my school, and pursue my dreams of becoming an astronaut. Growing up idolizing Mae Jemison and other trailblazing women like her, I know that working toward my own success is something bigger than myself. I don’t have 20/20 vision, but I do have corrective contacts and these big ideas; I want young girls and women to feel that a career in aviation and STEM fields are not only available to them but also encouraged, and to help incite this missing “push” for girls in aviation for future generations of young women.

My father got his pilot's license when he was just sixteen years old. His favorite hobby came to an end some years later when his vision had deteriorated so much that he was no longer cleared to fly. He would tell me that "back in his day," corrective lenses weren't allowed and that he needed to have 20/20 vision to fly. Growing up hearing my father's stories, I had always wanted to follow in his footsteps and start flying as early as I could. I took my first lesson in the dead of Minnesota winter at fourteen years old. I remember my hands feeling almost frostbitten, and I couldn’t stop squinting as the reflection of the midday sun on the snow-covered fields below us was nearly blinding. Despite all of this, what I most clearly remember was having the time of my life. Unfortunately for my plan to get my license as soon as I was old enough, just like my father had, the next summer was when my family decided to move halfway across the country to semi-rural Pennsylvania. Although this was a hectic time in my life and caused a hiatus in my flying progress, I have since gotten back on track flying a Cessna 150 at a small airport right down the road from where I now live. Shortly after joining the Quakertown Airport, where I now fly, I learned about a widespread flight school tradition that they partake in: the solo shirt cutting tradition. This tradition began back before today's improved headset technology, when instructors had to tug on the back of students' shirts to get their attention while flying. After completing their first solo fight, students would cut out the back of their shirts to symbolize the absence of their instructor and the shirt tugging that was once necessary. The walls of the airport lobby are decorated with this cut-out shirt fabric, each piece personalized with the names of the students and the date they took their first solo flight. After waiting in the lobby each day examining these hanging shirts, I found only one name that could have been a girl. One day before a lesson, pointing at the only shirt that didn’t have a definite boys name, I asked my flight instructor, “is that Jamie a girl?” He replied that it was not, confirming that none of the prized solo shirts belonged to any female pilot. As an engineering major, I feel a huge push toward increasing the number of women in STEM fields. Aviation, like these fields, is heavily male-dominated. Although aviation and STEM fields are closely related, I don’t feel this same push to even out the male to female ratio in the flying world. In the coming years, I plan to get my pilot’s license, join Air Force Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (AFROTC) at my school, and pursue my dreams of becoming an astronaut. Growing up idolizing Mae Jemison and other trailblazing women like her, I know that working toward my own success is something bigger than myself. Volunteering at or even starting a flying camp just for girls to get involved and inspired from a young age, just as I was, is another goal that I hope to achieve in the near future. I don’t have 20/20 vision, but I do have corrective contacts and these big ideas; I want young girls and women to feel that a career in aviation is not only available to them but also encouraged, and to help incite this missing “push” for girls in aviation for future generations of young women.