As an orientation for their 8th Grade students, the Antilles Middle School of Buchanan, Puerto Rico (Department of Defense Education Activity) presents several career oriented talks to their students in order to trigger in them a career motivation and/or to give them general information about the many options they will have when selecting one. In High School (9-12), they have to select the Professional Technical Study that they most like, which include Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics (Engineering/Technology Pathway) and Information Technology (Programming/Software Engineering Pathway).

I had the honor of being invited to this activity as the speaker in the Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics area. I considered this a great opportunity to talk about the LTER Program and the Institute of Tropical Ecosystem Studies (ITES) in addition to passing along the experiences I had as a young woman while searching the career I must fit in. Half of my talk was oriented toward the importance of information management as a tool for scientific research.

The experience was very rewarding since I got the attention of several students, only few certain that it was this pathway they will follow, others opened to any idea, and most of them completely uncertain of what their career path, if any, will be. I could see the light radiating from one or two pair of eyes as I was talking, while nodding...

Invitation and Instructions for speaker

Presentation at School: Power Point, HTML