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So my senior year of college I chose chemical engineering.
Not because I knew what I wanted to do with it.
I think I was trying to follow in my brother’s footsteps.
He was off being great at West Point and the military academy and I wanted him to be proud of his little sister,
so I picked ChemE.
It was my senior year and I went to the Society of Women Engineers Conference in
Baltimore, Maryland with the sole goal of getting an internship between my final year of
undergrad before I start my masters,
and I saw the NASA booth at the career fair and it had like this electric fence around it.
They would never want to talk to me.
In my mind NASA was just this great – you know they breed these great people in a mountain somewhere and then they go work for NASA,
they are just these untouchable people, and they’re amazing and they do great things.
I never even thought they would want to talk to me.
So I walked around the booth and scoped it out and I realized that everybody just grabbed the freebies and I thought,
“Alright, I’m going in.”
So, I went in, long story short, and started my first co-op tour.
Here I am at the Kennedy Space Center, sitting outside on the spiral staircase of the Launch Control Center,
watching my very first launch.
Really finally coming to terms with what the International Space Station was, finally. I
was 21 years old at that time and I finally figured out, wow look at all of this going on.
So I’m watching the launch. I didn’t know what to expect.
I’m watching it go up and I see the fiery mass and can feel the vibrations in my chest
because you’re right there, as close as you can get to the pad
and I realized tears are streaming down my face and I didn’t expect to cry.
I didn’t really understand the emotion, but it was at that moment when I finally knew that I want to
be on that vehicle and that this is where I want to be,
where I want to stay forever and
I never want to leave.