-
What do you want to do when you grow up?
My 8th grade English teacher asked me this, and for the first time, I actually gave a response that was more than, "I don't know". Even though it was tentative, I decided, "Maybe work for NASA." To me, that meant be an astronaut, and I had no idea NASA Langley even existed, let alone in my own [regional] backyard. -
Period: to
Peer Tutoring
I spent a lot of time tutoring my friends in high school. I found the process enjoyable, and I really liked helping the kids around me. Teaching was something I knew I could do. -
Period: to
Chemistry and AP Chem
I took Gen Chem and AP Chem with a very influential teacher. She is probably the reason I decided to major in chemistry (that, and I just liked the subject), and probably the reason I'm doing what I do today. -
Meet your faculty research advisor
I was assigned to Dr. Orwoll at W&M. Coincidentally, he did research for space radiation shielding under monies from NASA and the Department of Energy. I entered his lab as a freshman and began, in essence, working for NASA. -
Period: to
Work in Research Lab
I worked in Dr. Orwoll's lab for four straight years. Money came and went, as did lab-mates. The projects usually stayed pretty much the same -- always focusing on space radiation shileding. I learned a great deal in my time there, and although I loved working with the people in my lab, I felt a sense that I was missing interaction with people. By the end of my time in lab, I decided an occupation with constant human presence would be better for me than working under a hood all day. -
What can you see yourself doing?
I became a little tired of lab work (although I continued with it), and asked myself what I could see myself doing in the future. The answer to myself, somewhere in the midst of my sophomore year, was that I could see myself right back at my own high school teaching chemistry. -
School of Ed.
Living with 2 roommates who both joined the School of Education at W&M, and knowing how much I enjoyed peer tutoring in high school, I decided to join the Ed. department, too. -
Lab Tech at NASA
This was my first experience going to NASA to do work for my research lab. We used machinery on center at NASA Langley (when I finally figured out that there was a NASA center not 25 miles away from me all my life). I worked on testing the tensile strength of the materials built in our lab as well as their resistance to degradation due to atomic oxygen. I continued this job for the next 18 months or so, but decided that this may not be the job for me after all. -
But that will never happen...
Or will it? As I finished up my final semester, I began to get in contact with people from my old high school to let them know I was interested in returning. Knowing that the school as a rather low turnover rate for teachers (many have taught there until retiring), I figured it was a shot in the dark. I was surprised when I heard that one of the chemistry teachers would likely be leaving at the end of the year. -
Interview
I traveled back home to interview for my first job. Fortunately, some of the people I interviewed with actually remembered me from 4 years prior. And I didn't know it so well at the time, but a lot of networking was done on my behalf behind the scenes. A few weeks later, I found out I had the job. -
VASTS
After my first year of teaching, one of my colleagues left school to begin work at the Virginia Space Grant Consortium. She pulled me aboard a project in parternership with NASA called the Virginia Aerospace Science and Techonlogy Scholars. I've facilitated this program every summer since then, and I love it. I'm back at NASA Langley and in a role that much more suits me than sitting in a lab. I get to work with kids who will be the future of NASA and private aerospace industry.
