Back to the Basics by Jasmine

Back to the Basics by Jasmine - October 2016 Scholarship Essay

If you had told me in middle school that I would want to be an electrical engineer, I would have laughed in your face. I despised most of my classes and even though I actually did well in them, science and math seemed like a chore to me. It wasn't until I got to high school that I found my love for the two subjects through Project Lead the Way classes.
If I had the chance, I would go back and teach Intro to Engineering in middle schools. This was a class at my middle school but it was barely advertised to the students so I wasn't put in it. The class itself was also mainly populated with males with very few female students. I know now that women aren’t really encouraged in the engineering field and that disappoints me. That happens because they aren’t exposed to the career as much as males.
To teach a group of 11-14 years about the different path ways would be amazing. One day I could go from teaching my students how to write codes on the computer to designing three-dimensional buildings to creating solar powered chargers. The engineering field is so diverse and takes on so many different shapes and forms. I would advertise to females and let them know that it’s okay to be interested in math and science and that they shouldn’t be intimidated just because it is a male-dominated field. They would learn that they have a right to like what they learn and that no one can take that away from them. I would set up so many field trips as well. I could take classes to SDG&E, wind turbine farms, construction sites, and even air plane and boat museums. My goal would be to expose my students to all that is out there and make sure that they don’t limit themselves by what they think they know about engineering.