[ WOMEN IN STEM ]
SCHOLARSHIP ESSAY
FIELD:
AEROSPACE ENGINEERING
FOCUS:
PROPULSION SYSTEMS
I
n my first meeting with the university’s collegiate rocketry team, I was immediately
handed a clipboard. Despite having spent my entire summer mastering SolidWorks and
fluid dynamics modeling, the upperclassmen implicitly assumed I would handle the project
documentation and budget tracking rather than the actual propulsion design. It was a
subtle, almost polite dismissal—a microaggression that perfectly encapsulated the
unspoken barriers women in STEM still face. I did not get angry; I simply handed the
clipboard back and asked for the thrust vector control parameters.
Earning my place at the CAD workstation required working twice as hard to be taken
exactly as seriously. I spent my weekends machining aluminum components and running
grueling thermal simulations until my thrust vector control (TVC) mount design was
mathematically indisputable. When our rocket successfully completed its static fire test—
with my TVC mount maintaining perfect structural integrity under maximum dynamic
pressure—the dynamic in the lab fundamentally shifted. That experience taught me a
critical lesson: in male-dominated technical fields, competence is only half the battle; the
other half is having the audacity to firmly claim your space at the table.
I am currently a sophomore majoring in Aerospace Engineering. My professional objective
is to design next-generation propulsion systems for deep-space exploration vehicles.
However, my parallel mission is just as critical: I want to dismantle the structural biases that
keep women out of the workshop. Last semester, I founded "Girls in Orbit," an after-school
community outreach program that teaches middle school girls the fundamentals of
aerodynamics, coding, and 3D printing. I want them to know early on that their place is on
the engineering floor, not just taking notes on the sidelines.
