As a young Black female with little resources and a dream of building a career in S.T.E.M., I had to draw my own roadmap. Now, with my 501c3 nonprofit organization, Black Girls Do Engineer, thousands of young girls don’t have to.
It all started with my love for, or some might say, my obsession with learning. Growing up in an underserved community, I knew from an early age that education was my only way out. With limited resources, having the means with which to learn was just a thought. As I grew in years and academic achievements, that thought took shape as a vision. Although my school had textbooks, they were few in number and mostly older editions, and in my community the emphasis was placed on sports as the way up and out. If you were a top athlete, plenty of attention came your way. However, if you were a straight A student as I was, you were written off as a nerd. I was the resident nerd at my school. As a young student with high academic hopes, all we seemed to have was the spelling bee and a chance at being one of the great minds of the world. But with a single mom and no resources to speak of, curiosity was my greatest tool.
I had the determination to continue hoping and dreaming. I wanted more, but I had no idea how to get there. My parents did not go to college, nor did my grandparents. What I learned from my family was how to work hard, fall in love and survive in the world. A high school education was respected, because it was required by law. Having a “9 to 5” was seen as the goal. Living paycheck to paycheck was the norm, and “keeping your bills on” was the monthly goal. Dreams were unheard of, but I could not shake my love for learning, nor could I shake the notion that higher education would be my ticket.
It started in kindergarten. This is when I learned that my brain was different from others. I could answer all the questions in class, and then the awards started to come, along with my first pair of “Steve Urkel” glasses. The awards didn’t stop, but once middle school came around, my attention turned towards fitting in. Middle school, with all of its peer pressure, was compounded by moving from a small town outside of Austin, Texas, to the city of Austin.
In my new surroundings, I found that my friends were, let’s say, more advanced than I was, and being smart was not the primary focus. Being popular and cute became the focus. Although I still loved learning and my grades were still As, this was not the main conversation around my group of friends. I learned to have swag and to hide my smartness. College was not a part of the conversation, and the resources at school were just not there. Middle school was when I temporarily lost my ability to dream.
Once I entered high school, something inside me re-emerged. I learned that I’d better start dreaming because college was up next. College was something I always dreamt of, but I did not know how to get there. I had no firsthand living examples to follow. The sad truth was no one was talking about developing a college bound roadmap.
Because I was a high achiever, I had the option to take AVID in high school, which was a college preparatory class. My favorite part about this class was receiving 5 vouchers to apply to state colleges in Texas. These 5 vouchers represented my 5 chances to get out of my underserved community, but I still had no clue what a better world would look like. I imagined it being a world where you did not have to worry about your lights or gas getting turned off, and not having to worry about money or survival meals. To start dreaming again and understanding what a better world could be, I would sneak off to Westlake, an affluent community in Austin, to see what a comfortable living looked like.
My mom purchased me a Mazda for $500 dollars my senior year of high school. I had the option to graduate early in my junior year, but I wanted to graduate with my friends. I laugh about that now. Since I only took 2 classes my senior year to slow down my graduation track (insert face palm), I would spend the remainder of my days driving around the affluent community of Westlake. These frequent visits would allow me to see myself in a safe community, in a big house, and with a great career that attending college would help me achieve. At this point, all I had was 5 college application vouchers, good grades, and a dream.
Like a lot of single moms in underserved communities, my mom worked around the clock to raise me, spending countless hours working multiple jobs. She did not know what to do for a child who was seeking a college education when she, herself, did not have one. Of course, if someone would have given her the resources, she would have had the bandwidth to walk me through the process and she would have been my biggest advocate. This I know, because she was always at my basketball games and dance engagements cheering me on.
My 5 vouchers paid off, and I was accepted into my now alma mater Prairie View A&M University. I was able to obtain a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering and an MBA which resulted in my career as a leader for a Fortune 100 company and across many industries, within the S.T.E.M. space. My career has led me to many spaces where I was the only Black women in all my roles. Building my career as a successful Chemical Engineer has required me to construct my own roadmap from scratch, and being the only woman of color in most rooms I have entered was par for the course for much of my academic and career journey. This troubled me.
Why were there not more Black girls and young women entering S.T.E.M.? Was it a lack of resources, a lack of mentorship, or a lack of representation? I knew that in my case, I had experienced all three.
Fast forward to 2019, when one of my daughters approached me asking how she could become an engineer. In that moment, I realized that witnessing my life and career, and being my child had given her the gifts of resources, mentorship and representation; and I knew I needed to find a way to provide that for more girls like my daughter.
I needed to reach the girls who looked like me and who came from where I came from. I had become the mentor I had always needed. It wasn’t enough to achieve my own dreams. I needed to pay it forward for countless girls who looked like me. I needed to provide that coveted roadmap to success in the areas of S.T.E.M., and so I created the award-winning 501c3 nonprofit, Black Girls Do Engineer in 2019. BGDE was created with the mission to Educate, Elevate and Empower girls ages 6-21 by offering exposure and representation to help them achieve their aspirations in life. Our vision is to increase the presence of Black-American girls and young women in S.T.E.M. fields by providing career-based experience from industry skilled S.T.E.M. professionals.
In just a few short years, Black Girls Do Engineer has impacted 3,000 girls and college students, nationally. This impact has been driven thanks to our developed BGDE Licensed Curriculum that provides a detailed roadmap to success.
Our program has awarded $44,000 in scholarship to our BGDE members to help them with expenses for college. We won our 1st NASAWear Challenge in 2019, beating out 70 plus teams around the nation, and we have a 100 percent college success rate and job placement rate. Recently, the Mayor of Houston honored us our own “Black Girls Do Engineer Day!” This day is hosted on June 24th. Our organization awards other Black women and girls who are making an impact in S.T.E.M.
It brings me so much joy that this positive impact is incalculable because for each girl BGDE helps along their academic and career path, that girl will go out into the world and help others.
I could have simply stayed my own course, living comfortably now that I had made it, but I decided to reach back into my community, and I am so happy I did.
About Kara BranchKara is an Award-Winning Chemical Engineer and Founder and CEO of Black Girls Do Engineer. In 2022, she won the Mentor of the Year Award at the Houston Innovation Awards Gala, the Grit- Executive Award from ALLY Energy, and the 2022 Women in the Fast Lane of S.T.E.M Role Model Award from the Greater Houston Women Chamber of Commerce. She is also a recipient of the Rising Star in Child Advocacy Award from Children at Risk, the Outstanding Diversity Champion Award from Houston Business Journal, and S.T.E.A.M Trailblazer of the Year awarded by Imagine Excellence. Additionally, Kara is a recent winner of the 40 Under 40 Class of 2023 from the Houston Business Journal. Kara has served as a leader across multiple S.T.E.M. industries. As the Founder and CEO of Black Girls Do Engineer, she is a mentor and changemaker for the future leaders of S.T.E.M.
Black Girls Do Engineer is currently accepting applications for their 2024 S.T.E.M. program. Launched in 2019, the nonprofit brings resources, mentorship, education and representation to Black girls ages 5-21 to learn about and engage in rigorous S.T.E.M. (science, tech, engineering and math) education. The program has a 100% college acceptance rate and has awarded multiple scholarships to its student members.
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