Hidden Gems from a Black Girl Engineering Major: The miracle that brought me to Stanford

Cayla Withers is a Southern Black American woman of faith and an aerospace engineering student at Stanford University who is following a beautiful legacy of Black American women engineers from the South, deemed Hidden Figures. Withers’ dream is to travel to space one day and create her own legacy. While she is living out this amazing dream, there is so much turbulence she has to endure. But no matter how much turbulence there is … she just will not give up! Follow Withers as she takes off into a unique destiny full of crazy experiences and recounts her time majoring in engineering, reminisces about parts of her journey and drops Hidden Gems along the way. 

13.8 billion years ago, before the existence of mankind, a tiny, high-temperature ball of glowing, dense matter came about and shook up everything. This ball of matter surrounded by nothingness experienced a big bang that caused it to rapidly expand into beautiful galaxies, stars and planets like Mars, Uranus, Venus, Earth and more… Now we are here, existing in this very universe, a miraculous sequence of events I believe was orchestrated by God. 

Billions of years after the Big Bang, God would send me my own Big Bang miracle – something unexplainable that exploded my life and changed my destiny forever.

In my senior year of high school, I had dreams of making it big and going off to some Ivy League institution. Coming from a town where few went to college, this was an unusual dream for me to hold. After attending a summer program at MIT, my biggest dream became to study Course 16 (aerospace engineering) as an MIT student and experience the opportunity and resources there. 

So, I applied to MIT, Ivies, state schools and Stanford. I didn’t really know anything about Stanford, except that the application was free. 

Decisions came around and I found out I had gotten into Virginia Tech, University of Virginia (UVA) and North Carolina State, but was rejected from MIT. Ivy Day rolled around and I was anxious. Ivy Day is the day when kids’ dreams either get crushed or made (usually crushed). The day would end with tears for most people — either happy tears for getting into some of the most selective schools in the nation or sad tears for just missing the cut. It ended with a heavy heart for me because I didn’t get into any Ivies. I was crushed, but I still understood that I did my best. I tried to console myself, saying that I would be great no matter where I ended up. 

There was one college decision left for me to open and that was Stanford. But, I decided to commit to UVA, believing Stanford would reject me. Stanford had about a 4% acceptance rate, which was the lowest of all schools I applied to. I considered ignoring the decision letter entirely. But, I just told myself to open it, just to get it over with. To my surprise, it wasn’t a short letter saying “thank you for applying but sadly I regret…”. There were lots of words on the screen … I was waitlisted — which meant I still had a chance to get admitted! This was the best news yet. 

Weeks passed, and a stranger found me on social media. Two humans from different countries, different racial backgrounds, different religions and on completely different paths would meet, birthing a new journey. This woman was inspired by my story. She saw I had dreams of becoming an aerospace engineer and told me her father wanted to be one too, but didn’t have the resources to pursue his dream. Her husband was a pilot, a career I also dreamed of and her mother and daughter coincidentally shared my birthday. She offered to help me on my journey and ended up getting everything I needed for my dorm room without me even asking. I was grateful because I wouldn’t have been able to afford those things otherwise. 

Weeks later, I got a knock on my door and to my surprise, I had won a $100,000 scholarship. This scholarship was completely life-changing for me. Thousands applied, but I was selected. This was the largest scholarship given by a Black Greek organization at the time, and it was on a special day honoring Black American freedom — Juneteenth. I knew this was my ancestors telling me the way is made for me to be the greatest I can be and to continue the freedom dream they first dreamt.

Exactly four days later, I was accepted to Stanford. I continued to win scholarships and honors. My life was quickly exploding with miracles, and doors flew open for me to pursue my wildest dreams. As a small-town girl, I was overwhelmed with joy because I had never experienced such things before. Never in one light year would I have thought something this great would happen to me. I was in complete awe —my life changed in a matter of days. I didn’t even care about those rejections I had received anymore. It was like God was gifting me with beauty for ashes or stars in exchange for all the dust I received in my life.

I was excited to have this opportunity at Stanford, but I didn’t believe I belonged there. I was anxious because I thought the school accidentally accepted me, and I also had no support getting there. I told the stranger, now a friend, that I got into Stanford and she told me how it was one of the best schools ever and that I should go. I still wasn’t convinced because it would be long and hard to go across the country alone for the first time. She said, ‘Cayla, you just have to go. I’ll even take you there.’ I was reluctant, but I decided to take the risk. 

We were on the way to California, a journey I wouldn’t have made if I’d gotten into a top school on the East Coast. As soon as we landed, I felt newness in the atmosphere. California felt like a different planet. Soon after, we checked into the Stanford Hotel. When we were walking down the hotel hallway, I remember seeing notable Stanford alumni by each hotel room door — mainly White men. I wondered if there would be someone I knew by our room. To my surprise, it was Mae C. Jemison: the first Black woman to be in space and a change-maker in her field. We were in awe. It was like God sent me a sign that I was walking a path of stars, following in the footsteps of Mae. A lot of the anxiety I was dealing with floated away into outer distances. And in those moments, I knew I made the right decision to pursue my aerospace dreams at Stanford University. 

A crazy, unique and beautiful journey would then begin for that 18-year-old, curious girl who wanted to learn more about the universe she exists in. 

Sometimes the biggest rejections in our lives can birth the greatest miracles. You just need the eyes to see it. Some doors were meant to be closed for us, even though we can fit through them. And yes, it hurts, but it’s always for our own good. The rejection is protection from the unknown on that path, and it’s like God whispering in your ear that He has another path paved for you. When we understand this, we can easily be redirected to the right path for our lives and destiny. So don’t think too much about rejection, think about the blessings ahead and the prayers God has already answered for you. Plus, you never know what special things God has planned for you in the universe.

So, please keep going! 

Xoxo, The Blue Giant!

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