On November 5, 2021, 6th and 7th grade girls from public primary school im. Bolesława Prusa in Kałuszyn, Poland participated in a virtual IGNITE event, featuring IT expert Ms. Dorota Wypych.
Ms. Dorota, who is now an IT business analyst at Roche, told students that her first passion was figure skating. She devoted herself to the sport, spending hours training in the morning before and after school. All the competitions were too stressful for her and she decided to quit. When she was in primary school, she watched a movie that explained in a straightforward way how the body works. She was so amazed about how the human body works that she decided to study it.
She was a very good student, but she struggled in biology at first and changed schools as a result. In her new school she was one of the best students, just like Hermione Granger from Harry Potter. Because of that she felt very lonely.
In high school she met some wonderful people and she didn’t feel lonely anymore. She was fascinated with laboratory work, doing research under the microscope, so she focused on Biotechnology. She even moved to Milan, Italy for 3 years for work. Unfortunately, after working for 13 years in the lab, she felt burned out and decided to change her life.
Ms. Dorota went with her husband for a trip in the USA and when she was at the airport, she got a message from her friend about a company was searching for an IT expert. She didn’t have any experience in the IT sector, but job requirements included biology and biotechnology, so she applied for the job and was quickly hired.
Now the purpose of her new work was the creation of data elaboration programs for scientists. The company needed a person who would translate the needs of scientists into information platforms and explain all those requirements to IT programmers.
After meeting Ms. Dorota, the girls did a brief activity, drawing a dinosaur using only verbal instructions. Girls were able to ask questions and they all drew amazing drawings, very similar to the expert’s dinosaur.
Thank you to Ms. Dorota Wypych for sharing her passion, special thanks to Ms. Krystyna Raczyńska vel Wasiluk for coordinating the group, and thanks to IGNITE Founder and CEO Cathi Rodgveller for her encouragement.
After attending this event:
86%
of students are more interested in STEM
100%
of students plan to continue attending IGNITE events
Here’s what the students thought of the event:
“Thank you for this great presentation. You have shown me that even high school science can become an adventure. Thanks to this workshop, I will start learning math more, possibly even working with it in the future.” – 6th grade
“I was inspired by the story of Mrs. Dorota. I realized that it is worth practicing, trying and learning from mistakes.” – 6th grade
“She is a great person—she showed us many things in just an hour and combined learning with fun and this is the best way to remember everything,” – 7th grade