Friday, August 3, 2018
By:
This week was the American Association of Physics teachers conference in DC. Greg and I presented at 3 different talks, 2 of which were at the eAlliance summit. The eAlliance summit is a collection of female faculty who created peer mentoring groups for support and meet each year to discuss planning and organization at the AAPT meeting. Seeing them discussing their program and their lives was so heartwarming, and made me miss my own cohort of female scientists back at home. These groups were funded and coordinated by NSF. I am very thankful to have enough female’s in my major at the University of Maryland that our group could grow more organically and turn into the amazing support system it is today. Though to be honest, most of the organization was done by my friend Alison Duck. She is an amazing female astrophysicist who is currently working in Thailand over the summer and one of the best people I know. She should work with NSF building peer mentoring groups (if she wants to) she would be amazing at it.
People loved my presentations! Greg and I were talking about the teaching guide project and what resources we had developed. I reviewed use of the website and how to use the teaching guides, and then they played the games we made. People were very impressed with my presentation skills it seems, because many of the people from the eAlliance summit made a point of coming to our other talk about the history of HBCUs a few days later. That presentation also went amazingly. It was nerve wracking and empowering to be speaking from a place of authority at such prestigious conference. Greg seemed really proud of me, though he hasn't told me directly yet. In our last presentation he made a mention to the audience of how happy he was that I live nearby and hopes i continue to work with him. When I came back to work yesterday, everyone mentioned how Greg had told them I did a wonderful job presenting at the conference.
I bumped into people I knew from the Access Assembly Network throughout the week, and they made sure to come by my talk too! The Access Assembly Network is another group I am a part of and went to the conference for in May. They focus on diversity issues in STEM. They are all so nice and it was amazing to see them all here. We got dinner together Tuesday and caught up.
It was amazing to see everyone at the conference honestly. Since deciding not to go to grad school for traditional science research, I have had a hard time conceptualizing my place in physics and where I fit in. But it seems to have been really good timing, because going to this conference was exactly what I needed. This conference was filled with people who had the same passions as me, but they were full time passions, not side projects in their free time. People who were dedicated to increasing diversity in the field, plenary speaker talks about educational reform, the acknowledgment of how society builds our heteronormative patriarchal world view of things in every talk, and how to fix it! There was an entire room dedicated to lecture demonstrations and new advancements in them. I even bought a telescope for $20! I met so many people who were incredibly encouraging about me moving into this field. I have received so many suggestions on next steps it is incredible. I learned about new organizations like the National Science Teacher Association, and the Knowles teaching Fellowship. I literally spent this entire morning emailing all the people I met and following up with the opportunities they made for me. Yesterday I did nothing but edit my resume.
At first I felt bad taking so long to edit my resume at work, but my coworkers and mentors were all very excited and happy to help! Katie especially took the time to walk me through every part of a good resume, helping me design the format, pick fonts and highlight the things that would be the most important in diversity jobs. The people here are AIP are all so nurturing. Even though I felt slightly guilty, Katie kept reminding me that things like building a solid resume are a part of an internship. Stephanie promised I would leave here with the best resume they could offer me. I still have to send it out for final review to Stephanie and Amanda (Aip employees not myself and Amanda the intern, though she is amazing too). The people here at AIP really took me in and treated me as one of their own. The encouragement to take care of myself as needed, including taking a day off after working 10-12 hours days at AAPT, and helping me prepare for my next steps, making it clear they are both proud of my progress, and sad to see me go.
It is starting to hit me harder each day how little time I have left working here. James emailed us today with updates on our final presentations and schedules. He said he is collecting out ACP badges on Thursday. In 6 days. We are leaving in 7. Moving out in 8.
I am truly blessed to have been here and all the help I have received, all the growing I’ve done.
I have 6 days left. Gonna make the most of it.
Who ever thought I’d be happy to go back to work, and sad to leave!
Stephanie Williams