The Day I Stopped Calling STEM “Not for Me”

The first time I walked into our school’s computer lab, the air felt colder than the hallway—sharp with the scent of plastic keys and overworked fans. Posters of famous inventors lined the walls, but I didn’t see anyone who looked like my cousins, my neighbors, or me. I took a seat at the edge of the room, already rehearsing the excuse I’d use when I inevitably fell behind: I’m just not a STEM person.

Back then, my world was small in the way high school worlds can be. I knew what I liked—writing, debate, music—and I knew what seemed reserved for “other people”: coding competitions, engineering clubs, the kind of confidence that walked straight up to a circuit board and turned it into something that worked.

Seeing the Gap—And Feeling It

It wasn’t just insecurity. It was pattern-recognition.

In my classes, the same handful of students raised their hands first. In group projects, assumptions formed before introductions: the boys would handle the technical parts; the girls would organize slides. When teachers praised “natural talent,” it often landed on shoulders that already carried expectations of belonging. Meanwhile, students from underrepresented backgrounds—girls of color, students with disabilities, students who didn’t have family members in tech—learned to stay quiet, not because we lacked ability, but because we were tired of proving we deserved a seat.

I didn’t have the language for it yet, but I felt the weight of something larger than grades. It was the quiet power of stereotypes, humming beneath every classroom interaction.

A Network You Can Step Into

Then I stumbled across a story that reframed everything: the National Girls Collaborative Project (NGCP). What struck me wasn’t only its mission—supporting underrepresented girls, including Black, Latinx, Native American girls, and girls with disabilities, across STEM fields like cybersecurity, digital forensics, aviation manufacturing, and engineering—but its method. NGCP doesn’t just run a single program. It connects the people who make programs possible: educators, researchers, community organizations, corporations, higher education, and professional groups, all working together so girls don’t have to navigate STEM alone.

That idea—STEM as a network you can step into—felt revolutionary.

What Changed When Adults Collaborated

I’ve seen how one committed teacher can alter a student’s trajectory. But what happens when an entire ecosystem commits?

NGCP’s external evaluation reported outcomes that sounded like the antidote to everything I’d experienced: participants gained knowledge about programs and collaboration methods; organizations felt less isolated; interest grew in practices that better serve girls from underrepresented groups; and—most importantly—the quality of programs improved, boosting girls’ STEM interest, attitudes, confidence, and depth of learning. In other words, it wasn’t just encouragement. It was infrastructure.

Even the industries involved felt intentional. Cybersecurity and digital forensics aren’t just “cool tech”—they’re about protecting people. Aviation manufacturing isn’t just machinery—it’s safety, precision, and trust. NGCP’s partnerships on NSF grants bring a gender lens and educator professional development into those spaces, widening the doorway instead of asking girls to squeeze through it.

Learning to Belong

As I read more, something shifted. I realized how often I’d treated my doubt as a personal defect rather than a predictable result of unequal access. NGCP’s approach—dismantling stereotypes and the power structures that keep certain students out—made my memories feel less like isolated moments and more like symptoms of a fixable system.

Karen Peterson, NGCP’s founder, described women from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups as innovative problem-solvers in engineering and tech. That line didn’t feel like a compliment; it felt like a truth I’d been waiting to hear stated plainly. It reminded me that diversity isn’t a “nice-to-have.” Without it, industries lose imagination, decision-making strength, and real-world problem-solving power.

Choosing a Different Story

The conflict, I’ve learned, isn’t simply whether a girl likes science. It’s whether she’s given reason to believe she belongs there—and whether adults coordinate their efforts so her interest doesn’t fade in isolation.

NGCP didn’t hand me a single life-changing moment. It handed me something steadier: a model of how change actually happens—through collaboration, shared practices, and equity-driven design. I still feel nervous walking into rooms where I’m unsure I’ll be understood, but now I carry a new assumption with me: the problem was never my curiosity. The problem was the space around it.

And spaces can be rebuilt.

Reference (Source Link): https://blog.isa.org/spotlight-on-stem-diversity-and-inclusion-work-the-national-girls-collaborative-project