By Mia Martin
By 2030, I do not know what I would love to be. I am currently fifteen years old and in the subject selection process at my high school with no clear future career in mind. Although I do know what I enjoy. I love science and mathematics in school, and am always keen to learn more. So I am taking that as a hint from my subconscious that I may head in the direction of a STEM career.
As I am a term away from entering Year 11, my school has provided links to career help sites to help me create a clearer image of what I can see myself doing in the future. From these career help sites, there were quizzes which tried to place possible pathways with my strengths, weaknesses and personality. Some of the suggestions revolve around medicine, engineering, mathematics, space, taking care of the earth and politics. I was very interested in all the engineering jobs which included electrical, biomedical, industrial, civil, chemical, environmental, mechanical, aerospace and mechatronics. I am also interested in jobs such as pharmacists, physicists, political analyst, chemist, surgeon and astronomer. So it is safe to say that I am definitely interested in STEM.
Ever since I was little, I always wanted to fix things, at least help fix things when I could not do it by myself. Whether it was the toy train whose wheel had fallen off, or the broken lightbulb, I was fascinated and would learn how to fix it. Over the years I feel as though my desire to fix things has grown and is portrayed on larger scale. My dad and I found an old rusty, greasy bike in the back of our garage, and instead of throwing it away and replacing it, we decided to fix it up. We pulled it apart, cleaned all the pieces up and learnt how to put the bicycle back together. We looked back at our work, covered in grease and I felt a tremendous amount of satisfaction that I had been able to fix and repair something.
I also think that I am too ambitious for my own good, with goals such as ending the climate crisis, curing diseases and furthering humans’ knowledge of space travel. These goals will be challenging and world changing.
As a teenager in 2019, the biggest threat that I believe that we face is the climate crisis and consequently the human race is facing mass extinction in 2050. I want to be involved in the team of scientists who work together and save our planet and its inhabitants from this worldwide threat. Scientists have been ready to implement many technologies that will be able to reverse our man made effect on climate change, so as well as working on the science, engineering and math side of the work, I would like to use political and social sciences to infer, from a small to large scale, how, economically, we could use these technologies to change the world.
When I was twelve, I asked my dad what he thought that I would be or do in the future and he said that I would cure cancer, so I want to try to live up to that. How cancer works, spreads and keeps coming back has interested me and I want to be a part of the team that is able to create a cure for something that has taken so many lives. In a world which has had its second ever patient cured of H.I.V., which beforehand had been considered an incurable disease, I hope that cancer is the next to be eradicated and I want to contribute.
I used to sit back on my balcony late at night and just look up into the stars and study them. I love looking at the stars and being able to point out stars and planets to others. I believe that space travel is the future, although without lightspeed it may take a while. I would like to be behind the scenes, sending people into space, farther than any human has been before and I want to test these limits. I would very much prefer to stay on the ground than go up into space though. I want to do the calculations, come up with ideas and just immerse myself in anything to do with astrology.
I want to work with people who take as much pride and joy into their work as I do. If I was talking famous people, I would choose Elon Musk to fund projects, Katie Bouman because she helped create the algorithm that gave us the first black hole image and proved Einstein’s theory of the Einstein-Chwolson Ring to be correct, Helena Braga who creatively found a solution to a flaw in John Goodenough’s glass battery which had already been invented, Michelle Obama for moral support and Ryan Reynolds, just for fun. I want to be in a creative environment with my team and I want to work well.
All of the goals that I have, all involve the umbrella branch of engineering and I, an indecisive teenager, should just choose one of them. Shouldn’t be too hard should it?
