S-STEM Scholar Ruth Stowers's Blog

 I really enjoyed the TRAIN Mixer at ASU West last Friday. It was great to see a few people that I haven't seen for a while and meet with new people too. I was able to talk with professors who helped me to figure out some of my next academic steps. There were very few prospective TRAIN students, (two, maybe three). I was only able to speak with one of them, but she expressed concern about getting accepted to the scholarship. I was able to discuss my experience with her and how the process was extremely positive and helpful to me in my transfer process, Dr. Marshall is a super star! She also had questions about what was expected from TRAIN scholars during their time at ASU and I discussed with her the (easily met) requirements including the scholarship class and how it helps TRAIN students to build a STEM community of support for themselves. Last semester was a little different, but I'm hoping this semester will really open up the opportunities to build a strong supportive commu...

This semester sees me taking my last STP class (with Dr. Broatch who I have been lucky enough to have a class with for three semesters in a row!), and three Math classes, each with a significant amount of modelling and coding. As someone who has minimal experience with modelling/coding, I am feeling out of my depth. I am trying to have a positive mental attitude about my semester, but in all honesty, I am struggling. I am having a hard time feeling that I have what it takes to be successful in mathematical education or in a mathematical career. One of the reasons for feeling that way is that I don't learn well from reading textbooks. I learn even less orally. I learn best by engaging and interacting with the subject I am trying to learn, and by taking and reviewing detailed notes so that I can remember what I learn. I am finding that a lot of higher level math classes rely heavily on the styles of learning that are weak for me. A current struggle that I am facing with note-taking i...

  Over the years I have created many introductory paragraphs about myself, but the latest has been the most fun and representative of my personality. Perhaps that's because it wasn't a paragraph at all. A wordsmith I am not, but I can certainly slap a few photos together about the people and things that I love.

 At the beginning of this semester, I had no idea what a database was. I knew they existed and stored data, but I didn't know anything else. Over the course of this class I have learned that a database is an organized collection of information that is stored electronically. I have learned that it is more efficient and easier to use than spreadsheets. Its organization avoids some of the problems that occur with spreadsheets such as update and delete anomalies. It is also able to store vast amounts of data and allows for collaboration. The database that we created for our project contains information about different statistics to do with flights. More specifically, it contains information about different flight statistics for major US airports during different time periods from 2003 to 2015, such as the total number of flights and the number of minutes flights were delayed. We created 3 tables, airports, dates, and statistics. We took the flight data from the CORGIS website and propa...

 Two weeks ago I attended a marriage retreat where a lot of emphasis was placed on the healthy communication of emotions. This fit exceptionally well with what we had been learning from Brene Brown about being vulnerable. Being able to connect with people through vulnerability and healthy communication is an essential and fulfilling part of life for everyone. Since the retreat, I have been much more mindful of how I communicate with others, and I have been realizing just how important good communication is, how being an effective and empathetic communicator is a huge a benefit to both oneself and to others. I really feel that my communication skills have improved over the last two weeks, and that they will continue to improve as I make a conscious effort to develop them. I have also had an epiphany about efficiency vs. proficiency. I like to be proficient. I feel the need to dot the i's and cross the t's. I want to do the absolute best I can at everything I do. I want 100%. 10...

 Connection. That is what Dr. Brown, author of Daring Greatly, says our purpose is in this life. Our lives revolve around the connections we make. We live in the most connected society that has ever existed on Earth. We have more communication, more travel, more collaboration than we ever have before. We also have more industry, more education, more innovation than we ever have before. I don't think those things are unrelated. In times of flooding, ants have a beautifully effective way of saving the colony. Worker ants link their legs together creating a floating raft where they rotate positions constantly, trapping air pockets to allow all of the ants the opportunity to survive until they reach dry ground. Similarly, when people with an idea, a vision, a dream of something better, get together, they build on each other, inspire each other, strengthen each other. They accomplish much more than they could alone. The collaboration of the great historical minds of the twentieth a...

I have really struggled with this blog post. It has undergone major changes multiple times.  To answer the questions regarding my personal STEM journey, I guess I must start with what I feel my identity is.  The main driving forces in my life are my spiritual beliefs. They govern (by choice) my priorities and the direction my life has taken. Second to that is my family influence, both as a child, and now as an adult. My gender, race, age, etc... have never really been a factor for me. The core of my spiritual belief is that I am here to improve and progress, and that as I do, I become more like God. That is my ultimate goal, to become more like Him. My secondary goal is to attain the education necessary so that I can provide for my family with a job I enjoy. With these two things in mind, I feel that I have a sense of belonging and purpose in any wholesome and worthwhile endeavor that brings me closer to my goals. There isn't a perfect path, and choosing mine has taken a long ...