Last week we talked about why diversity in STEM is important and how it applies to current students seeking post-secondary education. This week we will get to examine a few of these students participating in STEM from interviews conducted about how they view representation in their particular fields. I intended to use these interviews to express a wide-range of individuals in STEM, which is why I chose to include other students enrolled in various universities around the United States. The questions I asked participants included their experiences at past educational institutions, in their local communities, and where they are attending currently and how it has impacted their passion for going into jobs that align with STEM.

While there were no exceptionally terrible experiences with participating in STEM education in years prior to attending a post-secondary institution, many of the students commented in their interviews that they found their learning in high school rather limited. Trinity University freshman, Josi Tesauro, said that her inspiration for wanting to go into STEM came from her chemistry teacher’s inability to teach her class anything worth learning. She explained that “It was our sophomore year when I took chemistry…And I had to teach my class…” When other classmates would ask her for help, she felt that the only way for her to understand was to do her own research and teach herself. Her efforts to simply understand the concepts needed to succeed in the class allowed the outcome was thankfully her interest in chemistry becoming something she wanted to do in her future career.

Similarly, Saran Ashley-Douglas, a Penn State University student, described her experience with STEM subjects in high school as encouraged, but not necessarily supported in the way that would give her more insight into her options. Like Josi, her discovery of health sciences came from working on a senior research project that involved some type of outreach into her local community. The school she attended was a relatively small, private school, and overall, she believed her experience to be mostly positive. It was when she had to put in a little more self-teaching and listened to the experiences of a friend’s parent who was in the field of health sciences did she consider taking this as something to study further.

Now enrolled into university STEM programs, there have been multiple ways that students are able to explore their chosen majors with the needed resources to do so more accessible as well. Bailey Plummer, a student majoring in occupational therapy at the University of Mary-Hardin Baylor, stated that she specifically wanted to attend the institution because of its revered programs specializing in different areas of therapy. Previously, she had attended a community college and transferred some of her credits to UMHB, but now, she appreciates how invested the university is in offering different levels of support towards her education.

Many of these stories communicate the resilience students in STEM have to getting the proper kinds of resources they want for their learning. With both positive and negative experiences, there is still work to be done toward providing students the necessary tools they need in order to feel secure to explore the different areas of STEM and what interests the most. Make sure to check in next week to hear more of these students describe how they are now feeling encouraged to continue their studies within these difficult times in the midst of a global pandemic.