STEMblazers founder and former mechanical engineer Wendy Merchant is driven by a goal to balance the gender scales in STEM-related industries. When she met Viasat employees Shelly Sousa and Emily Fitzgerald, she found kindred spirits.
The two Viasat Denver employees have spent the last several years volunteering their time to help grow STEMblazers. Systems analyst Sousa, formerly chair of the group’s board, serves as an advisory board member. Senior video content creator Fitzgerald is a five-year volunteer whose videos and photography help spread the message of the Denver-based nonprofit, which introduces girls to women working in STEM and hands-on experiences.
最近, 他们帮助制作了一个播客, 由该组织最早的两位成员主持.
“The general message we’re trying to convey is that you can do it,播客联合主持人麦迪逊·坦尼说. “I say this at the beginning of every episode of the podcast: What STEMblazers did for me overall is give me the confidence to pursue what I wanted to pursue, 把自己放在那里, 结识朋友，建立关系网. 拥有自信是关键.”
听到这样的话，麦钱特很高兴, since lack of confidence is often the reason many girls fail to pursue STEM careers.
研究表明，在他们进入青少年时期之前, young boys and girls are equally likely to believe they can succeed in a STEM career. But when girls enter their teen years — about the time many also make critical career choices — their self-confidence often falters.
在美国.S.，女人化妆 占STEM劳动力的28%. 大学的趋势并没有显示出这种变化很快, with men vastly outnumberering women majoring in most STEM fields.
An effective way to counteract the sense of doubt common to many girls is to expose them to role models – women working in STEM fields – and hands-on STEM experiences, 商人说.
“There are so many awesome young women and talented girls who don’t have that support,” she said. “We connect all these amazing women working in STEM with these students so they can see what is possible.”
在科罗拉多州种植
STEMblazers was founded in Colorado in 2014 as Girls in STEM. 该项目贯穿整个学年, 包括两周一次的会议, 演讲嘉宾, 去技术办公室实地考察, 工作见习和指导机会. They also provide guidance on applying for scholarships and internships, 还有人际关系和其他职业技能.
Today, it’s offered in 13 Denver-area middle schools and four high schools.
Sousa and Fitzgerald are among a growing group of about 30 STEMblazers board members, 志愿者和分会领导. 包括Viasat、Burns在内的几家公司 & McDonnell and Lockheed Martin — also act as corporate sponsors.
Merchant has always been keenly aware of the dearth of women in her field. But she first saw the roots of the issue several years ago when her then 10-year-old son became involved in STEM activities.
“I realized there were very few girls, if any, engaging and signing up for these things,” she said. “在做了更多的研究之后, I realized the ratio of men to women hadn’t changed in engineering for the past 35 years.
“我找到了自己的使命. 我决定把我所有的时间都投入其中. 我不再学工程学了. 我喜欢，但我更喜欢这个. I get so much joy and fulfillment out of it, and there’s definitely a need.”
但是，她说，她不能做所有的事情.
That’s where help from women like Sousa and Fitzgerald has been vital. 他们都很清楚榜样的价值.
Though Sousa fell in love with computers as a child, she didn’t pursue that career path immediately. A series of events led her to a temp job that sparked her tech career.
“There’s a quote, ‘You can’t be what you can’t see,’” she said. “What if I had known as a teenager what was available to me — how much would my life have changed? Without friends or family in the industry, it took me so much longer to build up my network.
“Now these students have people like Emily and me they can reach out to. 如果他们想在我们的行业工作，他们知道我们是谁.”
其他路径
Fitzgerald can also show students they don’t have to be engineers or scientists to work in a STEM field. 作为Viasat视频团队的一员, she creates internal and external videos and marketing content on all segments of the company’s business.
“I have to understand everything because I’m telling a story,” she said.
But in college, Fitzgerald says she struggled to find her path. She hopes to shortcut that process for the young women in STEMblazers.
“我真正喜欢的职业是科技, and I went to an engineering school — but as someone who wasn’t in engineering,菲茨杰拉德说, who earned her degree in computer graphics technology from Indiana’s STEM-focused Purdue University. “I found an outlet for telling stories through a technical capability, 但我必须自己搞清楚. 能够分享我自己的经历真的很酷.”
麦钱特说，这也达到了预期的效果. STEMblazers不仅让女孩树立了自信, 这激励了他们中的许多人从事STEM职业.
A former program participant is now studying engineering at Stanford University.
“她在一个资源不足的社区上学, 她没有意识到她的可能性,商人说. “STEMblazers gave her the confidence to take that chance and apply. Knowing we’re empowering them and helping them become aware of what’s possible – that just gives me chills.”
STEMblazers播客可在 苹果播客 和Spotify.
欲了解更多信息，请访问 STEMblazers.