I have always wanted to be an aerospace engineer and work for NASA growing up but didn’t think I had the potential given the fact that I am a Hispanic female. However, I still pushed myself to do what I had to do to achieve my goals… and there were definitely a ton of hard bumps along the journey. I felt intimidated by the amount of guys in my engineering classrooms and my calculus professor once made fun of me in front of an entire auditorium class saying I would never make it in the space industry. Despite feeling like I didn’t belong, I still managed to push even harder these past few years and prove others wrong. It definitely took a lot of sacrifice to pull all-nighters to study for exams and staying up until 4 am to finish homework. But all of this hard work was definitely worth it. I can finally say that I did it.
To anybody who has ever felt left out: Please keep on believing in yourself and keep on working hard, because you will achieve your goals and it’ll be so worth it.