Hope and Why We Need More of it in STEM

Hope. Just one word, but so much power. Hope can carry us through our most difficult moments in our careers, school, and life. The reason hope is important in STEM is because the work done in this field is tremendously rewarding to society, yet it’s very difficult to succeed in as a student and as a professional. For those of you reading, who don’t know what STEM is, it stands for Science Technology Engineering Math. In this field we have the hope for improvement – we have the hope to make the world a better place every day. When we have hope in the field it’s amazing, but when we don’t, it’s a downfall. People don’t quit because something is too hard or because they can’t do it right now. They quit because they have lost hope that even in the future they can succeed on their current path. I know this because I was one of those people. I momentarily lost hope for finding my place in the STEM field both in school and out of school. Now here I am happy, with a degree in engineering from USC, giving you my thoughts on hope in STEM and how to create it. 

In my experiences as an engineer, I have seen people give up on hope for their career, classes, leaders, etc. Classes get hard, work gets tough, and problems sometimes seem unsolvable. Throughout my years in college I met students who were always succeeding and I met some who had trouble keeping up in their classes like myself. As a professional I would work with people who excelled and with people who had a hard time understanding their work. Being a student and a professional in the STEM field is tough. The one thing that carried everyone through to the end, no matter their struggle, was hope. Hope drives us. However, hope alone will not help make our dreams come true. We must take action to turn hope into forward moving energy! The STEM field is changing every day. So if you’re not succeeding today, you still must have hope that you will succeed tomorrow.

Here’s how we can have more hope and take action every day in the STEM field:

If you’re a student reading this, and you’re struggling to find your place here in the STEM field, don’t give up hope. Find a group of people (peers, counselors, mentors) and stick through the storm together as a support system. The weather always gets better when you make it out of the storm.

If you’re an educator reading this, then never give up on any of your student’s or mentees, always strive to give them more hope and guidance to help them succeed. Reach out and ask if they’re understanding the material and if they don’t then try to understand where to help them.

If you’re a recruiter reading this, and you meet a student who may not be ready right now for a career at your company, think of a way to help them prepare and give them hope that they will succeed. A little bit of hope and advice go a long way.

If you’re a founder reading this, and you want your vision to succeed, then instill hope in yourself and in your employees. Make sure they have hope for success like the way you have hope for your company’s success.

If you’re an employee in the field reading this, and you’re not quite liking your current path, don’t give up hope that you are stuck in your career. There are endless possibilities in this field to find your passion and live every day doing it.

If you’re a leader reading this, then you want to be kind and give your team hope that they can make it passed the failures and the struggles. When you see someone struggling, know inside they are probably struggling too, so help them out. Create a great organization and culture by giving hope and taking forward moving action towards it.

If you’re reading this, and you want to be the next great engineer, doctor, scientist, and so on, then I have the highest hope for you! Let’s make it happen!

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