Pictured above: Tien Hoang

The Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (S-STEM) Resource and Evaluation Center (REC) has a primary goal of enhancing infrastructure, fostering a sense of community, facilitating collaboration, and consolidating research outcomes among the numerous S-STEM programs sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in colleges and universities across the United States. The REC is dedicated to providing support to S-STEM grant recipients and scholars while striving to enhance the overall effectiveness of NSF's S-STEM portfolio. 

As part of these efforts, students are invited to an annual S-STEM Scholars Meeting that offers valuable plenary sessions, professional development workshops, and guidance covering various crucial topics, including internships, summer research programs, graduate school preparation, resume building, and career planning. Additionally, scholars have the chance to engage in targeted activities aimed at connecting them with peers who share similar STEM disciplines, educational levels, geographical regions, research interests, and career aspirations. Notably, a career fair is hosted during the event, offering scholars the opportunity to interact with representatives from various industry sectors. 

Tien Hoang, a junior Computer Science student, was selected to attend the S-STEM Scholars Meeting in Washington D.C. this past September. Tien represented his cohort of 11 scholarship students who are involved in YSU’s NSF-funded DEEP-C program which works to promote the success of academically gifted commuter students. 

Over the course of three days, Tien attended plenary meetings, a career and education fair (which consisted mostly of graduate programs), student poster sessions where students presented their research, and a professional development workshop session. In these sessions, various topics were covered across over 10 different rooms. Tien attended a presentation about “Using STAR stories to connect your strengths to the most sought-after soft skills by STEM employers”. There, he was given worksheets and was able to practice how to use the STAR strategy to present his skills. On the last day, Tien had the opportunity to network with Huanying (Helen) Gu, Ph.D, who is a professor of computer science and an associate dean for research at the College of Engineering and Computing Sciences at the New York Institute of Technology, along with many other peers.

When reflecting on key takeaways from the conference, Tien said, “Some things that I took from the plenary sessions is to try and intertwine your passions with your work. One of the speakers, Jaye Gardiner, spoke on this topic because she has experience dealing with splitting passions. As a child, she thought that she either had to pick art or science, but in reality, she could do both. Now, one of the things that she does is create science comics to increase science exposure, access, and literacy through a group that she co-founded called JKX Comics.”

There were also numerous opportunities for the development of soft skills. In regard to challenges and personal growth, Tien shared, “For me, the most intimidating part of the experience was just talking to a bunch of people that I don’t know. I’m pretty reserved so generally I don’t just go up to people and start talking to them. I think I did learn from this trip that most people do not mind you talking to them. In most cases, they are in the same boat as you, so that helped get over the intimidation. This experience helped me get more comfortable going up to people and talking to them. I think it prepared me a bit for the STEM Expo that just passed, and I can see this being a useful skill in life.” 

Aside from the professional and academic opportunities at the conference, there was also time to meet new friends and explore the city. One of the highlights of the trip was “getting to meet up with a group of people, and we went to grab dinner and rode electric scooters over to the Lincoln Memorial. I was able to meet these people through the app Whova. This app allowed attendees to create meet-ups where you could RSVP and meet and chat with others. Four of them were from Alabama and the other three were from Cincinnati, Ohio.” 

With countless conference events available to undergraduate students each year, there are numerous opportunities to pursue an experience like the one presented at the S-STEM Scholars Meeting. Tien says, “I would definitely recommend any student who has the opportunity to attend a conference like this to go. I learned a lot from my time there and would do it again in a heartbeat. I think meeting new people is reason enough to go.”

Acknowledgment 

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under grant number 2030894 within the S-STEM program. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.