Growing Up

Image Courtesy of The Sweet Misery

I'm growing up. It's a fact. After dreaming to become an engineer for about 10 years, I'm almost here. In fact, I consider myself 'HERE'.

In Middle School, I aimed to get as-far in math as possible. And I did. 

In High School, my goal was to take Calculus and Physics by the time I finished. And I did.

In College, my goal was "To Do the Best I Can," get involved in Undergraduate Research, and have at least one internship. And I did.

Looking from the eyes of high school, there are some things I never would have imagined I would do:

• Work for NASA
• Work for a Fortune 500 Company
• Move to Dallas, Texas on a whim
• Live and work in Washington DC
• Live and work internationally (To be done, but planned)
• Present at 3 research conferences
• Go to Ebay and get sent to New York City for Free.
• Consider a PhD
• Take such pride and value in engineering

Now what?  To be honest, it's unnerving not to have a specific goal. Do I get my Masters in Engineering and MBA? Or do I go for my PhD? Or do I just wait and see?

For you youngsters: All of the above is possible. Work hard, have fun, and keep your dreams in sight.

-Serena

Taking a Look Back: High School

High school is a very difficult time to imagine your future self.  My high school experience consisted of colorguard and school.  That was my life.  I hated being at school, and would often want to go home to finish my homework. However, my peers and I would often dream about our potential in college or even after college.

I distinctly remember when a good friend and I were sitting in Mr. H's Junior AP English class, discussing college admissions.  "If I don't get into college, I'm gunna have LOTS of babies and go on welfare!" We were very nervous about our potential to get into the University of California system, even with our grades at the time. Our teacher simply laughed at our future "plans" and said, "You'll get into college. Don't worry about it." (Well, we did, and now we're rocking our respective UC campuses.)

In the same class (different day), the same friend was discussing my career prospects. "Serena! When you go work for NASA, will you name something after me?"  I basically scoffed at my idea of working for the glorious organization, and said, "Sure, I'll name something after you." To be honest, it was an empty promise at the time.  However after a few years at the university, I started to realize my potential in the "real world," and the words of the promise started to take hold.

This past July, I was offered to intern at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.  I visited my good friend in August, and I told her that if I did, in fact, design something, I would name it after her (but only her nickname that she hated, hehehe).

Two weeks into my NASA internship, I got to design and build something.  It's basically rapid prototyped (you should look it up! it's totally cool!).

This is the part I created.  I added some 80-esq to it to give it some flavor.  And I named it "Malroy." It is used to hold my experimental samples while gluing them with the adhesive (I'll be sure to add my research later.).

Now it's really funny looking back.  You never realize where you are going to be in 5 years.  I currently wonder where I'm going to be 5 years from now.  But similar things will probably happen if I continue to work hard and be excited about what I do.  I hope this story is inspirational.  I do admit that it IS true.