STEM Success: How Kritchana Inspires Young Girls to Break Barriers

From episode: Where Are They Now? Ever Wonder If Your Former STEM Students Follow Thru with Pursuing STEM Degrees?

of the leadership skills that you have is you also, not only did you participate in the VEX robotics and you were one of the leaders on the VEX robotics, but you also continued, you also volunteered and you continue to even volunteer in different or various STEM organization, including hosting a STEM event at NutPoint High School and to encourage young girls interested in STEM field. So I mean, I was really amazed by your maturity, by your leadership. What inspired you to want to give back and encouraging young girls and young people interested in STEM in STEM field? What encourages you? What inspires you? I think for me is that like I started throwing back from like elementary school. I remember participating in like a Lego robotic program and like it was really interesting to me because I thought, hey, like, are you sure? Am I really allowed to do this? I usually thought it was for like a boys thing, right? But then like the, I think it was like sponsored by the Marines or something, the man who like kind of came out to teach all of us, he was like, no, this is for everyone and that you should have a chance to participate in this too. And so that really got me inspired. And then especially coming to middle school and then high school, I heard about VEX and I was like, okay, like this is my chance to like do something that I found fun when I was growing up and especially like participating it throughout high school. I wanted to share this opportunity with other younger girls and people within my community so that they're able to kind of have the chance to step up and go into a field where girls just aren't predominantly like, I guess, available in all these like different fields or not as known, especially like if we're in the field and like usually it's like unfortunately guys get most of the recognition. So I think that if I'm able to inspire younger people to step up at a younger age, they'll be more confident in the future once they enter these fields.