“I was struggling with imposter syndrome before I knew what it was, wondering, ‘Have I been living in a dream world yet? Am I not as smart as I thought?’ That I am?’ I would just knock out homework problems in my room, no problem, but I would go to class, and it was almost like I would freeze. [My professor] I’ll walk around the room, and I can’t get my mind to work. I really struggled through it and didn’t pass that class – the first time I’d ever failed a class – and it was supposed to be my major!
“…Sometimes you look around and wonder why you don’t see much [people of color] In some positions, and it’s probably because of situations like this where we have such high standards but feel we can’t meet them. We don’t give ourselves grace. We assume, ‘This is obviously not for me.’
“…but I knew I could do it. I had to, number one, get out of my own head, and, two, realize that everybody’s a fan or in your corner cheering for you. will not. [this situation]and it hooked me. It held me back until I realized that I could do it and that my importance was not based on what anyone else thought of me or my abilities. .. I went back that next semester with a new mindset and determination, and I passed that class. An A and progressed through the rest of my engineering classes.
“That [experience] It really informed the kind of leader I am and taught me how to make sure everyone has a voice and feels like they belong. Looking back, I thought it was the worst thing in the world when I was going through it, but now I see that it was exactly what I needed to realize at this point in my life. That’s what I’m doing here. Doing I learned to give myself grace. If I had pulled myself out of that STEM major, I would never have been able to manage a technology demonstration program for NASA that launched ten technologies into space.
– Tonya Plummer Laughinghouse, Director Materials and Processes Laboratory, Engineering Directorate, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center
Image credit: NASA/Charles Besson
Interviewer: NASA/Tahira Allen