STEM Minorities

Having some experience with programs designed to promote participation in the STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) disciplines by underrepresented groups, I did not want Black History Month go by without a comment on why members of underrepresented groups should consider careers in the STEM fields.

The scientific method is the great democratizer.  It does not matter what your gender, race or creed is.  If you come from poverty or wealth, in the STEM fields it only matters that you have uncovered truth.  Not objective truth, but verifiable truth.

Do you wish to be judged by the content of your character?  Then study in the STEM fields where your contribution becomes part of the foundation upon which the future is built regardless of who you are.  

Will it be hard work?  You bet it will.  But when you are done you will be capable of engineering, chemistry, biology, biochemistry, physics, or mathematics.  You can make the things you need to live and live well.  What you get for your work is entry into fields that promise at minimum a middle class life.

What communities are mired in poverty, which communities are underrepresented in the STEM fields.  If you can see that connection, you can see the trends upon which scientific theories and laws arise.

If you think you are held down by the man, or by men, a STEM life is one where your skill, and your knowledge will have to be acknowledged simply because you have used it to discover objective truth and use that truth to build something.