My Family's Legacy by Qadira

My Family's Legacy by Qadira - February 2024 Scholarship Essay

My grandmother was a pioneer in my family’s STEM legacy. Despite being a lower-income black Muslim woman, my grandmother wanted to become a nurse. She loved to help people and wanted to care for the sick and injured. During the 80s, my grandmother was studying at medical school while supporting her family. But one day, my grandfather decided to abandon her with four kids with no notice. Without income from my grandfather, my grandmother worked overtime to pay for her schooling and to provide for my mother and uncles. When she became a nurse, she hardly had time to be at home leaving my uncles to raise my mother. My grandmother knew that if she kept working, her children could have a good future.

My uncles attended college but dropped out to pursue trade. My mother, understanding the adversity my grandmother faced, wanted to complete her higher education. When she entered college, the age of the internet and PCs was just starting. She was fascinated by computers but as the only black student, she was constantly harassed and bullied by her classmates, making her leave computer science. Instead, she pursued applied mathematics and statistics. It was during her week of graduation that she met my father. She was drawn to him due to similar circumstances. My father was also raised by a single mother and understood the importance of higher education and career choice. My parents wanted to settle and start a family where they were both part of their children’s lives and could provide a stable income. When my parents had my siblings and me, they wanted us to go into sustainable fields and attend prestigious academic schools.

As I grew older, I started to develop an interest in STEM. My middle school wanted to inspire more minorities and women to pursue technology and science-based fields and made it a priority to make everyone interested. They offered career advice, and STEM-based clubs, and even hosted a career week with different women and minorities across many professions. I knew how I was viewed based on my race and gender but I never made the connection to higher education and career choice. My middle school experience blossomed my love for STEM and helped me understand the resources and opportunities college would offer me. In high school, my parents helped me apply and work at different STEM and activist programs in NYC. Throughout all my exposure, I was most drawn to software.

I am thankful to be in a college that develops my professional experience and surrounds me with motivated and like-minded individuals. With the resources that Rochester Institute of Technology offers, I was able to develop many exciting projects and receive the resources I need to launch my own business.

My most recent achievement was my involvement in the RedLiners, a project with a primary focus on accessibility and medical technologies. The project involved creating products and service concepts for clients such as Al Sigl and Rochester Regional Health. I collaborated with a team of six students and industry experts to develop glasses that assist patients. The glasses were designed to improve the quality of life for patients with visual neglect; a condition where they fail to report, respond or orient to stimuli located in left contralesional space. Using the Python OpenCV package, I was able to generate red contours onto objects, making it easier for the patient to be aware of objects in their space when wearing the glasses. One of the biggest challenges was understanding the disease, which is not only rare but can't be explained by a fundamental sensory or visual problem. Throughout this project, I was able to broaden my perspective and design code that was more inclusive and accessible to people with disabilities.

It was the resilience in my grandmother and parents that empowered and led me to where I am today. I will continue to use my education to help more people overcome their day-to-day struggles. As developers, we need to create projects that are more inclusive and reflective of the modern world. I am passionate about accessibility and aspire to create more innovative technologies. I want to connect individuals and organizations with sustainability initiatives and facilitate collaboration towards a common goal. When I graduate, I hope to create a positive impact on society and contribute toward a more sustainable future.