Persistence Not Perfection is Path to STEM Success

This blog is dedicated to encouraging and empowering students, particularly students pursing careers in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields.  

Students can sometimes have the impression that a single bad grade, or even a single less than perfect test score, dashes their hopes for a career in the sciences.  That is simply not true.  It is not true even if you have done fairly poorly in school during decent chunk of your education.  This can easily happen for those of us who have had other life challenges and lots of non-academic responsibilities during our education.  Or just those of us who didn't find school a good fit early on.  STEM needs you, needs your perspective, your experience, your resilience, and your persistence.  

Those of us who have contributed our stories here are all successful scientists who didn't have perfect grades (or even who had abysmal grades) at some point in our educational journey.  We want you to understand that a successful career in STEM is open to you even if your grades aren't perfect.  Perfect grades also don't guarantee success in STEM.  This is true for your grades both in high school and in undergraduate.  In high schools, there is often so much emphasis put into getting high grades and getting into a 4-year institution right after high school, sometimes the message can seem like that is the only way to success in life or to get into STEM career paths.  Again, that is simply not true.  

Ultimate success in a career is much more about being persistent, figuring out solutions, finding opportunities to get experience that do work for you, working towards long-term goals, and finding good mentors.  High grades themselves do not even guarantee that success.  High grades can sometimes make the path a little more direct, or a little faster, but a high GPA is far from the only path to success.  After you take your first college class, nobody will ever ask for your high school GPA or GED again.  After have have your first job, or start at graduate school, it is very rare that anyone will ever ask about your undergraduate GPA again.  

Most careers are not like your path through school, where there are clear metrics to move to the next step in a linear path.  Developing a career is not a single rocket launch, where one misstep can lead to disaster.  Your career path can be a journey, with lots of side adventures and mishaps, setbacks and huge advances, mixed in with triumphs and wins.  So please join us for our stories, as we tell you about our journeys.  

Some additional inspiration:


https://www.ted.com/talks/angela_lee_duckworth_grit_the_power_of_passion_and_perseverance

https://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2020/10/19/do-college-grades-predict-future-success/


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