GCF Star of the Month

Hometown: Greece

Grade: 10th 

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My parents are both accountants who own an accounting office. Because they worked really hard and didn’t have any relatives willing to help them, my sister and I spent our childhood in the office. By the time I was 7 and she was 9 we were both helping around the office. As time passed she started focusing on other things, but I didn’t. I “worked” during my free time and vacations, that’s where I caught the economics virus. As you might have guessed I had more knowledge of economics than the average kid, but that didn’t stop the men around me from invalidating my abilities. When I started middle school I took an economics class taught by a male teacher. I was the only female taking it and we could just say the teacher wasn’t fond of me. The first day of the class I was really excited to finally take a lesson about the thing I loved the most, let’s just say my excitement was crushed. When the teacher first saw me, he was shocked, during the whole lesson he ignored my raised hand, didn’t have me participate in the get-to-know exercise and refused to even acknowledge me. After class was over he kept me behind and asked me which boy I was trying to impress. I tried to explain to him that I liked the business field and have worked with my parents but he just laughed. He told me that even if I truly liked the field, something that he didn’t believe, I should just give up because it wasn’t for little girls like me and that the most I would ever be able to achieve related to economics would be to become a secretary in a company. I went home crying and only told my sister about it, she who is interested in engineering had dealt with males like that a lot too, she told me something that I would never forget; There aren’t male and female jobs there are just male trying to gate-keep their jobs because they knew that a woman would be able to steal it from them in a heartbeat. With that in mind, I continued the class and made it my sole purpose to prove him wrong, I was the best student in class and everyone knew except the teacher. He refused to let me participate in competitions so I just enrolled in them by myself and beat the school teams. Unfortunately, he wasn’t the only misogynistic male I have faced and it won’t be the last either. I have had judges not letting me participate in competitions because they didn’t believe I had passed the first round, I have had clients in parents' office believing I was a maid, and I have had economics summer programs rejecting me because I wouldn’t fit in with the other participants. But I haven’t shed a single tear for any of them. Sure they are frustrating but their insecurity is much more entertaining than anything. So to my fellow girls always having a man waiting to diminish them just know that they are just an annoying background voice. You can be whatever you set your mind to and just because something is male dominated now doesn’t mean that it won’t be female dominated in the future.

Nysa Khanna

September award recipient

Hometown: India

Grade: 10th 

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​There was once a time I walked into a computer science class and noticed I was the only girl there. At that time I was just 11 so I never thought this kind of a situation happens everywhere. I'm very enthusiastic about making a change in society and the environment as I've grown up in quite an unkind and half-witted one. I belong to Haryana where the female feticide rate is the highest in the nation even after laws have been imposed and not surprisingly my own family believed that having a girl as the eldest in the next generation would be nothing but a scourge to the prestigious family name. They were at first displeased on the day of my birth however, I've made them believe with all my efforts that a woman can achieve just as much as a man and even more! I may have been able to change the perspective of my family but Haryana as a whole remains stuck with the mindset of a woman needing to depend on a man for her identity and lifestyle. My main agenda is to change this type of mindset, I do not want future generations to suffer and have to constantly prove themselves the way I have had to. They deserve equal opportunities as well as an identity of their own.  The main challenge I have faced is everyone I know simply being unable to believe that a girl as young as me is able to make such an impact, another one being someone living in India I am not able to work here at my age without bringing shame on my parents. Here if a child starts working after the age of 14 even though it is legal, it makes society wonder about the socio-economic status of the family, and by "wonder" I mean the association of the infamous Indian aunties decides to bring shame upon a family. Women in STEM have always been suppressed and under-appreciated. I’ve heard it so many times that women are simply not made for the STEM field yet there are a plethora of reasons to prove them wrong and I want to be a part of those reasons. My advice is don't be afraid to raise your voice, don't be afraid to rise when no one else is because even if you fall, there are thousands of women in STEM who will help you back up.