[91-94; 96-98] My dad is an engineer, so I was from that young age I had that influence over me, I still do. So that was a big part. So I’m the oldest of four, so I have three other siblings. So I felt like there’s always that pressure to succeed, do well in school and all that stuff. […] I like knowing how things work and all that generic stuff. So yeah I’d say it’s a mix between. I do want to do it and I do like it, but I think also a big part of it was also my dad.
[9-11; 28-30; 38-44] …in terms of my academics at least, I always try very hard. I’ve always taken the hardest classes. I was in STEM Academy for my high school… it was everyone that was looking for majors involving science, technology, engineering and math and all that types of stuff, basically you get put in a cohort, to an extent. There was specific trips we were able to go on since we were in the STEM academy. The biggest thing, […] was an agreement they had with […] a local community college, and I got to transfer out, 16 college credits. I just picked whatever class I had, and if I got an A or B in them for the transfer credit I was able to do that, so I got to bring in those into [East coast university].
[58-62; 66-68; 70-72] they just introduced it in my senior year, an engineering class. So obviously I took it, because I was like, “You know, why not? Maybe it will be relevant, maybe it will be interesting.” So I took it, it was all right. It was mostly based on mechanical engineering which like, I’m biomedical engineering, so it’s still useful, I suppose, but I am not as interested in it. It was a good class. We watched […an] open-heart surgery, we got to watch that. So that was kind of interesting to watch. […]. I remember watching it and I found it pretty interesting, cause like I don’t know, I think that stuff is interesting, I don’t care about the blood or anything like that.
[76-78] So, the only thing I didn’t like about [the STEM Academy was], I don’t get to into it, but today nowadays they stress the women in engineering thing, I don’t have a problem with that, except then they have the trips only for women in engineering so I couldn’t even go.