On February 23, 2023, IGNITE Students from Federal Way High School participated in an IGNITE Event featuring a panel of women in STEM. The panelists included:
Shaude’ Moore, BSHS, MBA, EdD Candidate, Global Program Manager at Amazon Web Services (AWS), is a Federal Way Public Schools graduate. When she started her position, she was the only woman in security on the West Coast—eight years later, there are now many women in lead roles supporting physical security operations globally for her organization. Shaude’ hopes to inspire more equity in her division through sharing the importance of diversity and inclusion. She holds degrees in human services and business administration, and she has had the flexibility to be in school throughout her career, so much so that she is currently a doctoral candidate.
Alexandra Hines, Senior Land Use Planner at ESM Consulting Engineers, always loved buildings, but didn’t realize until her senior year that she could go to school to design them. In college, she studied architecture and then supplemented her undergraduate degree with a graduate planning degree. Alexandra never imagined a professional career in land use planning. College wasn’t easy for her, having to cope with financial strain from her parents’ divorce; she is grateful for the FAFSA grants she was able to receive and the retail/restaurant jobs she had during college. Alexandra faced some difficulty landing jobs throughout her professional career, but has seized some amazing opportunities. She has been able to learn and contribute in the public sector and now the private sector and she has harnessed enterprise systems & drawing programs from college to career.
Thank you to the panelists, Shaude’ Moore and Alexandra Hines, for the opportunity to hear about their stories and careers. The IGNITE Students learned a lot and are hoping to take some of the CTE STEM classes offered at FWHS!
After attending this event:
100%
of students are interested in STEM
83%
of students know more about STEM career choices and the benefits of working in a STEM field
83%
of students feel more confident in pursuing STEM
89%
of students gained perspective and feel more hopeful about the future
Here’s what the students thought of the event:
“Today’s event inspired me to keep pushing hard to reach my dreams. I was able to gain more insight that increased my interest in STEM. My big takeaways today is to persevere and stay curious! Thank you to the volunteers that came today!” – 10th grade
“This event motivated me and helped me understand more about STEM.” – 10th grade
“This experience really helped inspire me and gave me hope in pursuing astronomy. I learned that if you really try, you can achieve many things. There are many careers in STEM, especially many that want to include women.” – 10th grade
“Today showed me how much dedication is needed in pursuing a STEM career. It also inspired me to pick out classes in STEM. I learned that aerospace engineering is a good class to take if I want a space-involved career and physics is also an important to class to take to help understand how certain things work.” – 9th grade
“Today’s event convinced me to apply myself further and pursue the elevated chemistry course. I am now more comfortable with just trying more to gain experience.” – 10th grade
“I learned a lot of new things about STEM. It got me thinking about the careers and it showed me I can achieve anything I want, as long as I put my mind to it.” – 9th grade
“Today I learned that it’s okay to not know what you want to do, and you can do more than one thing. It was inspiring to see women leaders and hearing their stories.” – 9th grade
“I liked how there were a lot of different people interested in different careers at this event. Each job included STEM and the speakers were really interested in their path. I learned to take a lot of different classes and be curious about different electives. It also opened a lot of different doors to ideas about career paths to take.” – 9th grade
“I have been really torn on whether or not I should pursue a STEM career, but after this experience I am really hopeful. I am still not sure whether to go after my medical goal or my engineer goal, but I feel so much more confident in my ability to reach the goal I choose.” – 11th grade
“This event was amazing- I felt comfortable and everyone was nice. Thank you to all the volunteers, I hope to see them again!” – 10th grade
“Today inspired me to go to college. Thank you to the volunteers for coming today.” – 11th grade
“This experience showed me that a lot of careers involve STEM. I am interested in art, so maybe becoming an architect might be fun! The volunteers were very kind, open, and made me feel comfortable while learning about the benefits of STEM.” – 11th grade