My World Exploded With Possibilities

By Stephany D., Hendersonville, TN

Mr. Billy Butterworth stood in front of our brand-new Magnet School Robotics Team during one of our first meetings. “Who here knows what they want to be when they grow up?” he asked. Amid the mumbling and nervous glances, one small, pale, and very conspicuous hand shot up. All eyes turned to me and I said, shyly, “I want to be an aerospace engineer.”

I got a bunch of blank stares, of course. But Mr. Billy still tells that story to anyone who will listen. I impressed him that day, and he and all the other Robotics Club mentors have been very supportive. But I have Mrs. Kay to thank for giving me the best opportunity of all – INSPIRE.

“Stephany, I found some great opportunities for you to look at,” she emailed me one day. “Take a look at the second link, the application is due pretty soon!” And that link was, of course, for the NASA INSPIRE Online Community. I wasn’t a very proactive person at that point, but I went ahead and filled out that one application, at my parent’s urging. Looking back, it seems as if my world exploded with possibilities once I got accepted. I still reference one of my first LiveChats, about the Hubble Telescope, in daily conversation. In fact, most people who know me know that I’ll be busy every Thursday night with “that NASA stuff.” I was constantly awed and amazed by the things I learned on INSPIRE. I was even more awed when I was accepted for the STEM Summer Experience – in Puerto Rico! Those two weeks easily made last summer the best ever. I made great friends and learned so much. I’ll never forget standing underneath the world’s largest radio telescope, splashing in a bioluminescent bay, and building fractals out of post-it notes…and shoving them all in people’s backpacks. For that matter, who could forget getting stung by jellyfish, eating plantains for two weeks straight, and hearing “Should I Stay or Should I Go” karaoked in two languages at once by a bus full of NASA geeks? But more than anything, that trip taught me about myself. I’ve never been more surprised than when I tied with Abby for the leadership award. Everyone else found it perfectly natural, but I was dumbfounded. Me, a leader? Sure, I did ok when Mr. Billy volunteered me for pit manager during the Robotics competition. But there had been no competitions those two weeks – well, unless you count our impromptu robot battles. Anyway, the SSE truly inspired me. It made me more confident in myself and what I could do. I was even brave enough to run for Vice-President of the Robotics club this year.

And, I won.