I move a lot. Colorado, Arizona, Wyoming, New Mexico, San Francisco…lots of bouncing around. Eventually, I moved to Redding and decided to attend Shasta College. I was living on my own, facing housing insecurity, and it was really difficult. My GPA dropped below a 2.0, and I was like, “I can either drop out or I can give it my all and see what happens.”
I started small. I started going to the gym, quit my bad habits, and quit my job. It was a really rough semester, but I made it through. After that, I was like, “Okay, I can do it. I can take on more.” Now I’m taking 15 credits, interning, and hanging out with friends who are motivated and dedicated to school!
When I was moving from state to state, the sky was the only thing that was consistent. I always found myself looking at the stars. So, when it came time to pick a major, I just kept going back to astronomy.
I’ve had some great math professors at Shasta College, like Jennifer McCandless and Cathy Anderson. Cathy helped me see math as beautiful. The MESA program, specifically Jessie Knight, has been a huge beacon of support in my life. Jessie told me I could do it when I didn’t think I could.
I had just gotten my GPA up and staged this comeback when I decided to apply for the highly competitive astrophysics internship with the LAMAT institute at UC Santa Cruz, never expecting to hear anything back. They had already filled the three spots left, and there were at least 150 applicants by the time they got to me. They reached out to Jessie, started talking about funding, and were able to open another spot just for me. This summer fellowship is launching me right into the field I want to be in, doing research with universities in astrophysics. I would love to work at NASA or JPL. I have friends that are aerospace engineers, so I would love to be able to work with them and combine my astronomy and physics education.
My advice would be to take it slow, and go one step at a time. Set your goals high, and then it’s okay if you miss them because you’re already working towards something bigger. Shoot for the moon, and if you miss, you’ll end up in the stars!