As far back as I remember, I’ve been a justice warrior for women and girls. I remember standing up for kids who had no voice for themselves on the playground as early as age 8. I was tall (relative to peers) so that helped give me confidence, but I was also wired for justice. At no time in my upbringing did I think I could do less or be less because I was a girl (even in my earlier upbringing in the Middle East). Such was the household I was raised in. I am lucky. That’s not always the case.
Studies show the importance of strong parental support from both parents as a factor in future success, but especially when it comes from the dad (even so far as to provide future-proofing and resilience in male-dominated fields). BTW, in my blog posts, I won’t be bothering with citations and references as a general rule, but if you are ever interested, you can always pick up a copy of my PhD and search for the references. With over 1000 references, you are not going to be bored. All of the proceeds of my PhD will fund the animal shelter in Armenia where we rescued our dog while on vacation. If you’d like to learn more about this shelter, you can visit them on IG or FB-Dingo Team.
Back to my WHY
STEM has been very good to me, but it didn’t come easily. I went to college with huge hopes of pursuing engineering and once I hit my first semester, I realized how grossly unprepared I was for the rigor of college-level math, physics, biology, chemistry, you name it. I paused, and used the opportunity to step back to “095” classes to regroup, shore up and build the knowledge that I was missing. The challenge was that I had gone to elementary school from 1 st to 4 th grade in Iran, where I had been exposed to a lot of math and science. From 5 th to senior year (in a variety of schools and countries), it seemed that rigor was not there in my curriculums. I speak a lot about this learning gap in my research. Since the late 1950s, we’ve been wringing our hands about how we are falling behind in STEM in the US. We are currently hovering in the 39th spot in the OECD countries in terms of our scores. And those first year STEM classes are gate-keeping classes, designed to weed you out. Women (more than men) get discouraged when they perform poorly, and quit.
I took it as a challenge, crawling my way around Cal State Northridge until I could successfully get through the 100 level entry STEM courses. I think everyone should be given this opportunity, but better yet, they should just come ready to go when they enter college.
So my WHY is about shoring up and supporting women, from college age to senior leader, and being a “tutor” for life. Essentially, I am the person I wish I had along the journey who could mentor me, and show me the ropes, especially as I climbed the corporate ladder while balancing house and home.
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