Have you ever dreamed about being the first female President or one of the few women in male dominated fields? Well, I have. I have dreamed about becoming a mechanical engineer for forever. It’s one thing I’ve known since before I can even remember. I would take bars of soap, chalk, cups and dominoes, basically anything I could reach as a five year old, and build buildings out of them. Even with Legos, I would build them and think to myself, “I don’t need instructions, I’m going to be an engineer.” So, for my 12^th birthday, I got the Lego NXT Mindstorm robot. I went to robotic camps at Georgia Tech every year after that to learn how to build and program the robot. I even joined the robotics team at my school, and I was the only girl! Do I sound like a geek yet? Well, I don’t care!

I was additionally given the privilege to attend LSU XCITE this past week, which is a residential summer camp on LSU campus for high school girls to learn about all the different areas of engineering. There were a total of 22 girls who all have an interest in becoming an engineer of some sort. I already knew what kind of engineer I wanted to be, but to see other girls get excited and want to pursue a career in it was truly amazing. But, it didn’t stop there. The camp had counselors that were current engineering students at LSU in multiple different engineering fields. It helped encourage us to not get dragged down by what men will say and give us hope that it is possible to achieve our dreams.

So, I want to send a huge thank-you to the LSU College Of Engineering for giving not only me, but 21 other young women as well, the gift of motivation and hope for the future.

You see, it doesn’t matter if you’re the first woman to be one or if you’re the 100th. As long as you think you can do it and you put in the work to be successful, you can achieve anything. Yes, I know how cheesy that sounds so let me lay down the facts.

According to Huffpost, 38% of women become an engineer, but 30% end up leaving due to “difficult workplace conditions.” You can check out the full article here. This leaves women at a low 8% in this workforce, giving men even more power. So to all the hopeful girls who are striving to be an engineer, keep working towards it. There might be more men, but that’s nothing to be scared of. I’m asking you to let that encourage you, encourage you to be apart of the team of women who will even out the playing fields and maybe even give women the upper hand. It’s worth being apart of, and plus you have a whole society behind you: The Society of Women Engineers. Read more about all that they do here.

So, whatever your dream might be, keep hope, get inspired and never give up. I’ve dreamed of being an LSU Tiger Mechanical Engineer my entire life and maybe the odds aren’t in my favor, but you will never see that stop me. In a couple years, I will accomplish my dream, and now I want to see every one of you do the same. Good luck and Geaux Tigers!