Tasting Freedom

(So I know that I actually have another post that I could use for this cycle, but I made that one before the deadline that was changed, and since it feels like I haven't written in a while and I still have so much I want to talk about, here's another post...)

Air travel has always caught my interest, which I guess isn't surprising since I've grown up with planes. It was in eighth grade that I actually started being interested in the science of flight. Anyone who went to Rolling Hills will probably remember the 8th Grade Exhibition project. I still thought I wanted to do something regarding biology back then, and so I chose the (incredibly long and mildly pretentious-sounding) topic of the search for extraterrestrial life in our solar system - basically trying to figure out if there's any hope of finding "aliens" on Mars or Europa (Jupiter's moon). While I was working on that, I realized I was more interested in the vehicles that made it possible to go to these other bodies than in the actual idea of extraterrestrial life. I've always been pretty good at math and science, and so I decided then that I wanted to be an astronautical engineer - specifically, designing spacecraft.

I let that idea stew for a while in my mind. After Exhibition, it was off to high school and biology class my freshman year, which mostly just reinforced the idea that I really didn't want to be a biologist of any sort. Body parts? Dissections? Ecosystems? So not my thing.

Being the overachiever that I am, I took AP Physics B the next year as a sophomore. I struggled at first but eventually the mechanics started to click for me. I liked learning about Newton's laws, and I really liked knowing more about how the physics of mechanical things worked. Around this same time I was touring different colleges, most notably Cal Poly SLO, where I sat in on a sophomore-level aero engineering class - and understood the majority of what they were learning. I didn't know anything about aerodynamics yet, but I wasn't lost during that one-hour lecture, and to this day I think that has been my most educational and interesting class ever.

Subconsciously, although I'd forgotten about it by the time second-semester finals rolled around, I think that class affected my decision for my final project. In physics we didn't have final exams for second semester since we'd just had the AP exam; instead, our final was a project. I chose to focus on aerodynamic efficiency - that is, the ratio between lift (how much upward force the air exerts on a plane's wings - I went over that a little in my last post) and drag (the air friction as it goes over the plane) that allows for the best fuel efficiency. After teaching myself the fundamentals of aerodynamics, I knew that I not only wanted to be an aeronautical engineer rather than an astronautical engineer like I'd thought two years earlier. I also knew that I wanted to work with aerodynamics.

This last summer, I went to a girl's aviation camp in Wisconsin called Women Soar You Soar, which took place during the country's (and possibly the world's) biggest airshow, Oshkosh AirVenture. At WSYS, I met other teenage girls who were interested in aviation too, whether they wanted to be an engineer, an air traffic controller, a pilot in the military, or just a pilot as a hobby. I met several famous pilots - including some of the WASP from WWII - and made a number of connections that I'm really grateful for, including my mentor, who works at Boeing as an engineer and offered that she may be able to help me get an internship there next summer.

A lot of people want to know why I want to be an aerospace engineer and the steps it took me to realize this. It's not something that's easy for me to describe - even this abbreviated (if you can call it that) version spans from eighth grade to now. Hopefully it details a little more about how I reached this conclusion though.



To end this astronomically long post:

Tasting Freedom
I stand at the edge of a cliff overlooking
the dark abyss of the unknown,
the forgotten, the left behind remnants
of a once beautiful world
without pain or suffering.
A strong wind pushes me closer
to the edge, the air carrying with it
the broken pieces of hope
from the world of pain. A single pebble
tumbles from the ground below me
into the ever-darkening pit
that stretches into eternity, daring my foot
to tip over the edge, to test the boundaries,
to taste the lemongrass scent of freedom and beauty.
And then, as the gust of wind slows to a slight breeze,
I spread my arms, take a step forward,
and fly.


~Becky Hill