Story Transcript:

“Hi there, my name is Lyric, and for today's prompt I'm going to be talking about an experience I had my sophomore year, my sophomore year in high school. This was a hard prompt for me though, actually, because I have a lot of positive experiences in STEM actually. I was born and raised out here in New Mexico, so a big shout out to all of my science, technology, engineering and math teachers that I've had throughout my life, because they've done an amazing job. But in particular, my chemistry teacher for my sophomore year really stands out to me because math is always something I was able to get by in, but it never was my favorite. And especially, you know, you just are afraid to speak up sometimes, you're afraid to speak up, and I kind of was under the mentality, I think, with math, that you kind of have to buckle down and figure it out, you know. And it was always a challenge at home because my mother thought in a very different way. She's very smart, you know, but thought in a whole different way than I did. I was just very visual, very hands on.

And so I remember this chemistry teacher in specific because I remember being kind of discouraged with the math, but once we started the labs, it was like magic for me. And she even came and talked to me personally kind of, you know, like, “This is... this is the paper coming to life,” is how she kind of described it. And it was that for me. It was this tangible kind of understanding to all this math that I've always like, just felt like I was at war with almost. So it was really encouraging and really inspiring to, kind of, have that experience. And I think it really has shone through, you know, into college and everything, you know. I was excited to take these chemistry classes because I had this whole different attitude about it after this experience. And so yeah, that is my favorite experience with STEM. Thank you.”