The Day I Stopped Asking “Do I Belong Here?” and Started Asking “Who’s Missing?”

The first time I walked into the school computer lab after hours, the room felt like a held breath—screens glowing pale blue, chairs slightly crooked, dust floating through the projector light like tiny satellites. I was there for a cybersecurity club meeting, clutching my notebook as if it could serve as proof that I deserved a seat. Everyone else seemed to speak in acronyms and shortcuts: ports, packets, hashes. I understood the words, but not the confidence with which they were thrown around.

I had always loved solving puzzles, the kind that clicked into place with a satisfying certainty. Yet in that room, I felt like a visitor in someone else’s country—curious, careful, and constantly aware of my accent.

Finding a Map in a Maze

At home, my family celebrated education like a holiday, but we didn’t have a roadmap for tech. No uncles who worked in engineering, no family friends who could explain what “digital forensics” meant beyond TV crime scenes. In school, I was “the girl who’s good at math,” which sounded like a compliment until it became a ceiling. People assumed that meant I was built for quiet excellence, not bold leadership. I learned to shrink my questions so they wouldn’t sound like interruptions.

Then, in an online search that began with “girls in cybersecurity programs,” I found the National Girls Collaborative Project (NGCP). It wasn’t a single club or a scholarship link—it was a network, an idea. NGCP, founded by Karen Peterson, connects organizations to increase participation in STEM for girls and underrepresented groups, including pathways into cybersecurity, digital forensics, engineering, and more. That single word—collaborative—felt like an invitation.

The Real Threat Isn’t a Hacker—It’s Isolation

The conflict I didn’t know how to name wasn’t a lack of ability. It was isolation—the slow erosion of confidence when you rarely see someone like you at the keyboard, at the front of the room, or in the examples on the slides.

STEM can be framed as meritocracy: work hard, learn the material, succeed. But the truth is more complicated. Access to mentors, to programs, to a sense of safety in not knowing yet—those are resources too. NGCP exists because chronic underrepresentation doesn’t fix itself. It is built, reinforced, and repeated unless someone intervenes with intention.

An external evaluation cited NGCP as highly effective at increasing knowledge of programs and resources, strengthening collaboration skills, and expanding best practices for serving girls from underrepresented groups—including Black, Latinx, and Native American girls, Latinx youth, and youth with disabilities. The results weren’t abstract. Programs improved. STEM content became richer. People felt less alone. Girls’ interest and confidence grew, and pathways for retention became clearer. Reading that felt like reading proof that my experience wasn’t personal weakness—it was a predictable pattern with a possible solution.

Learning to Build the Network, Not Just the Code

I started small. I emailed a local STEM educator. I asked questions I used to swallow. I volunteered at an outreach event and watched younger students’ faces change when they realized the robot responded to their commands, not someone else’s. In those moments, I saw how a single opportunity can shift a student from spectator to creator.

The more I learned about NGCP, the more I noticed how it works like good cybersecurity: it strengthens systems by identifying weak points before a breach happens. NGCP partners on NSF-funded projects in areas like cybersecurity/digital forensics and aviation manufacturing/technology, applying a “gender lens” through educator training and outreach. That phrase startled me at first—gender lens—because it sounded like something separate from “real STEM.” But it isn’t separate. It’s the difference between building a door and building a door with a ramp, a handle at the right height, and a sign that says you’re welcome here.

Becoming the Person I Needed

My biggest shift wasn’t technical—it was emotional. I stopped treating belonging as something granted by others and started treating it as something we design together. NGCP’s focus on dismantling stereotypes—and on positioning women engineers and technologists as role models and change-makers—gave me language for what I’d been feeling: representation isn’t decoration; it’s infrastructure.

Now, when I picture my future in cybersecurity or data science, I don’t imagine myself squeezing into an existing room. I imagine helping widen the doorway. I want to study computer science not just to build tools, but to build access—so the next student walking into a glowing lab after hours doesn’t feel like a visitor.

Because the question that changed everything for me wasn’t “Am I good enough?” It was: “If I make it through, who will make it easier for the ones who come next?”

Reference (Source Link)

National Girls Collaborative Project spotlight article: https://blog.isa.org/spotlight-on-stem-diversity-and-inclusion-work-the-national-girls-collaborative-project