Super-Woman

Today’s #WEARESTEMSQUAD theme is #history. My path to science is a bit of a winding road, but I ended up exactly where I always wanted to be. This is my story in bullet points: •I am originally from Portugal and moved to the US when I was 11. •I always wanted to be a scientist, but had to put those plans on hold when at 17 I joined the US Air Force to help my family; my father had terminal cancer, and being in the military allowed me to provide for him and my mom during the last years of his life. •After I left the military, I bartended while figuring out what I wanted to do with my life. I knew I wanted to pursue a science degree but was afraid that I wouldn’t do well since I hadn’t taken a math or physics class in many years. •I decided I didn’t want fear to dictate my life, so I started taking math and science classes at community college. •I worker hard AF and did well enough that I got an internship at NASA JPL and was accepted to UCLA to study Electrical Engineering. •But I ended up falling in love with planetary science while at JPL and ended up switching my degree to Geophysics and Space Physics. •Now, I’m pursuing my PhD, I’m involved with outreach and science communication. And I absolutely LOVE what I do. . If you got this far, thanks for listening! I love hearing people’s science stories, so I can’t wait to read all of yours. Anyone else a non-traditional student?

A post shared by 🚀 Raquel Nuno 🔭 (@raquelgnuno) on Mar 2, 2017 at 11:28am PST