Girls Rule STEM
Meet Sarah Selim:
High School Engineering Senior
How were you first introduced to STEM?
It was an honor and a privilege to be accepted to the Academy for Engineering and Design Technology at Bergen County Academies. Freshman year was the first time I'd been exposed to a STEM-heavy curriculum and to all the opportunities and possibilities of STEM. As far as the first time I really fell in love with it, that would have to be halfway through sophomore year, when I took my first course on programming: Intro to Java! Computer science captured my attention, and even now, as a senior, it has not let it go.
What are you passionate about? What role does STEM play in your future?
I'm passionate about a lot of things, but storytelling takes first place. When I was growing up, I mainly consumed stories through books -- books I bought or borrowed. With the rise of technology and STEM, it's the sad truth that it has become easier and easier for online pirates to give out copies of these books for free, stealing from the authors who worked on them. I'm passionate about giving credit where credit is due, and about making sure that the rise of technology does not have the unintended consequence of a decrease in value of the stories that still give our lives shape, color, and meaning. I want to devote my future to ensuring the future of storytelling, and the future of the authors who give us our favorite characters, imaginary worlds, through the expansion of cyber-security to protect their rights and their work. In short: the world is very quickly being redefined by computers, technology, code, and the internet, and I plan to use these new tools to make sure that our stories and storytellers are protected and preserved.
Do you have a particular STEM project you are proud of?
I'm really proud of a project I'm currently still working on. As a senior in the academy for engineering, I was challenged to start a final capstone that utilized engineering to fix a problem I was interested in solving. I find biomedical engineering as a career and a concept to be not only fascinating but incredibly important, and so I decided to create a prosthetic arm that could respond to muscle movement. As I've worked on this, I've learned so much about orthopedics and ethics, not to mention the amount of engineering principles and coding intricacies that go into a project like this one. So, despite the fact that my arm is still a work in progress, I can't help but feel really proud of the fact that I get to work on it.
Why do you feel it is important for girls to learn about STEM?
It's so important because STEM is where the rules of how the world works are going to be rewritten. Everything from the media we consume to the way we buy goods to our job market will undergo an incredible transformation as technology takes off. In my opinion, it shouldn't even be about what gender you happen to be -- it should be about learning about this new world we're about to live in, and being prepared to not only survive, but thrive in it. If I had to go into why girls specifically are important to the future of technology, I'd have to say that it's the same reason why it's important to have women in government, in legislature, in media -- these are mediums that affect everybody, and equal representation at the top will encourage equal representation and equal opportunity at the bottom. Girls are going to have to live in this new world; girls should have a hand in shaping it.
What advice do you have for girls interested in learning about STEM?
Do it because you care. We don't need girls in STEM just for the sake of girls in STEM -- we need girls in STEM because girls are tenacious, vibrant, and dedicated. They are a highly underutilized resource, not a quota fulfillment. So don't sign up for STEM classes because you feel like you need to, or 'because you're a girl' -- do it because you're curious, because you have an idea, because you don't like what you see and know how to fix it. What qualifies you to learn about STEM, to be in STEM, is not the rarity of people in the field who already look like you -- it's the new things, the new perspective, you bring to the table. STEM is still growing, still learning, just like you, and there is a seat for everyone at the table. If you feel so inspired, I encourage you to take your seat, and to not let anyone distract you from the fact that you are there because you want to be.