The start of something new

I am a graduate student in a STEM field. In fact, I’m in MATH, which gets its own letter in the acronym. Math is a huge field. It can get so specialized that I can listen to people in my own department talk about their work and have no idea what they’re saying. When I tell non-mathematicians that I study math, they usually are surprised to learn that there is math beyond calculus.

This phenomenon is probably seen in most other STEM fields too. People can only really talk about their research with a small group of other people who study the same thing, or study something closely related enough that there is some crossover.

I want to start sharing current science and mathematics research in a way that is readable to those outside of that specific field, or outside of academia altogether. I hope to write about my own research in a way so that my parents can understand what I do all day. I also want to share my graduate school experience as a female in a field with an unfortunately low percentage of women.

I hope this blog will help my science reading comprehension improve. I also want to get better at writing. Of course the only way to improve is to practice!