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Journalism of Courage
A young scholar’s tweet about the importance of coping with failure in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) is going viral, and is receiving praise from many including Google CEO Sundar Pichai.
Sarafina Nance, a PhD student in astrophysics and a National Science Foundation (NSF) fellow in the University of California in Berkley, wrote about how she once scored zero in a quantum physics exam. The result, she said, forced her to consider quitting physics. But she revealed that sticking with the subject despite the failure had paid rich dividends.
“4 years ago I got a 0 on a quantum physics exam. i met with my professor fearing i needed to change my major & quit physics. today, i’m in a top tier astrophysics Ph.D program & published 2 papers,” Nance, a 26-year-old astrophysicist who says she researches supernovae, wrote.
“STEM is hard for everyone—grades don’t mean you’re not good enough to do it,” she wrote.
The tweet got many researchers and scholars to share instances of the setbacks and challenges they had faced, and how they overcame them. As the thread and tweets went viral, Google CEO Sundar Pichai retweeted it, saying that it was “inspiring”.
Here are some of the other interesting and inspiring stories that people shared:
https://twitter.com/BldrJanet/status/1197722997156655104
https://twitter.com/GeorgeVourlitis/status/1197353682251042816
https://twitter.com/vpintoa/status/1197386433436119040
https://twitter.com/fegbutcher/status/1197598920517570560
The thread is continuing to get responses from people about the challenges they’ve faced in their academic career.
