Exploring the Women at NASA

This week I felt I really needed to draw a bit of inspiration and motivation to keep pushing on. Coincidentally, I bumped onto a tweet from Women@NASA on Monday morning which directed me to the website. A quick navigation through the site made me realize that I’d just found my hot bed of inspiration!  Hence I have dedicated lunch hour breaks all week long to read through the Women at NASA profiles and career journey.

Here are 10 lessons you may find useful. For more, visit women@NASA website.

1. Hard work pays! We hear this all the time, right? Well, these 50+ power women echo same thing.  You may have to spend sleepless nights or knock tons of hours at work to beat deadlines…don’t complain too much, it may pay off someday.
2. Be passionate at what you do and give it your best. You have heard that a million times by now. Well, it will keep on coming back around. Passion makes the hard concepts easier to understand. And you have a peace of mind knowing that you gave something your best regardless of the outcome.
3. There is no such thing as male careers. For women who shy off from pursuing STEM careers, there is no such thing as careers for men. You have heard that too, right? Well it’s true! So knock off the negative attitude and pursue STEM if you are truly passionate about it. This takes me to the next tip;
4. NASA accepts careers aside from STEM. If you were worried that space science or largely technical fields are meant for STEM academic background professionals only, you are wrong! Other careers do have room too. So hold onto that dream regardless of whether you have a STEM background or not.
5. Disability is not inability. Sometimes we shy off from pursuing certain opportunities because of physical disability. Unless it is totally impossible to chase your dreams due to severe condition, never let anything else hold you back. Check out this inspiring profile of NASA scientist Courtney Ritz . Diagnosed with a form of eye cancer which led to eyes defect, Courtney still went ahead to pursue a career in science and technology. She embraced braille science while in school and plays a number of musical instruments too!
6. Always have a dream and chase it. You may be discouraged by your friends or family or community from pursuing a certain dream…shrug it off and go for what you believe in! Anything is possible.
7. If you intend to pursue a technical field, embrace practical skills from an early age. There is no short cut on this one, you cannot make the best engineer or programmer or architect (and so on) if you don’t explore what you can do (your potential) off the classroom.
8. Have a work-life balance. Create ample time for family and friends. Engage in mentoring sessions at your local tech club or volunteer at church. Do something else that makes a change.
9. Be open to the lessons life sends your way. Life is never a bed of roses and neither are careers. Be open to failure and learn from them. Every opportunity is a chance to learn.
10. Trust God in all that you do. I preferred to write this last as a way to crown up everything else said already. I know there are moments where we feel God is not fair to us. But guess what, you are because He has made that possible. Let him be the center of what you do!