Reaching for the Moon and Landing Among the Stars

Mae Jemison
photo courtesy of
www.nocountryforyoungwomen.com

I asked my three-year-old sister what she wanted to be when she grew up.  Without skipping a beat, she smiled and said “a doctor, a ballerina, and a dog doctor.”  I laughed at first, but then I thought about how beautiful it is that most children will confidently respond to that question with a similar, seemingly unrealistic hybrid.  Why is it that as we get older, we lower our expectations for ourselves? No matter where you’re from, economic status, gender, race, sexual orientation, you hold your own place in this world, and you control what you want to do with it.

Mae Jemison is a true testament making your own future. She is a dancer, an engineer, a doctor, a Peace Corps volunteer, and the first African-American woman to enter space. Jemison was born to be great. Since childhood, she was fascinated by sciences and the arts. While her teachers did not support her dreams, her mother was always there encouraging her to discover and achieve whatever she set her mind to.

In 1973, sixteen-year-old Jemison left Chicago to pursue a degree in Chemical Engineering at Stanford University. Her race and gender did not always make her time at Stanford easy. "Some professors would just pretend I wasn't there. I would ask a question, and a professor would act as if it was just so dumb, the dumbest question he had ever heard. Then, when a white guy would ask the same question, the professor would say, 'That's a very astute observation.'" These experiences only further drove Jemison to achieve all she could.

In the following years, Jemison obtained her Doctor of Medicine from Cornell Medical College, volunteered her expertise in Cuba, Kenya, and Thailand, and took modern dance lessons at the Alvin Ailey School. Later, Jemison would choreograph and produce several modern jazz and African dance shows from the studio in her home.

Her next journey was with the Peace Corps in Liberia and Sierra Leon. Three years later Jemison felt it was time for a new adventure. After the flight of Sally Ride, the first American woman to enter space, Jemison knew it was time to apply. On September 12, 1992, Mae Jemison changed history as she became the first African-American woman to enter space.

Today Jemison is a professor at Cornell University focusing on the strong impact African-American have had on the U.S. sciences and technologies from the beginning, she strives to ignite passion in minority students.

So, what did we learn from Mae Jemison? Whoever you are, whatever you dream of being, take a lesson from this inspiring and truly amazing woman and never let anything stop you.

“Don’t let anyone rob you of your imagination, your creativity, or your curiosity. It’s your place in the world; it’s your life. Go on and do all you can with it, and make it the life you want to live.” –Mae Jemison