Hello, my name is Ayesha, a second year Bachelor of Science student in Computer Science. I’ve always struggled telling my story because I feel that often what I say does not do justice to the vividness I want to communicate, but it is a skill I hope to put to use for you today, dear reader!
18 years ago, I was born in the peculiar city of Dubai. My family moved temporarily to Melbourne when I was 3 years old, but I was mostly raised in the UAE. And as you may have imagined, I grew up comfortably in a sleepless, sparkling city amongst skyscrapers that almost seemed to urge my dreams to outgrow them. And that urge I did not take lightly.
However, despite being a born and bred city girl with seemingly the whole world to explore, I always found myself coming back to the same spot for comfort since I was a child: between the literature and science bookshelves at the library. I found solace in reading, and I don’t think there has ever been a time I wasn’t currently reading a book.
With every page I turned, so did my urge to create, and I clung to whatever let me do so. And so, I created a world in science, math, and computing: they were a way of modelling the human experience through understanding how everything else worked. One particular mathematical problem strikes a chord in my heart: the P vs NP problem, the question of whether problems that are typically unsolvable because they take up too much time to work out can actually be answered in novel ways. The concept of creativity being a lifelong topic of interest for me, I became obsessed with realizing that the implication of this mathematical question is a complete redefinition of genius. I found solace in the stories hidden in poetry, that mathematics insinuated.
However, as I grew older, my comfort place between the shelves where I did so much of my pondering grew narrower, until one day I no longer could sit comfortably there, an unwelcoming premonition of what was to come. When I was in middle school, immigration turmoil between certain immigrants and the UAE arose. Thousands were deprived of work and financial rights and families were systematically being asked to leave the country with a week’s notice. My family was one of those affected.
You see, the UAE is peculiar in the sense that immigrants built its skyscrapers but never get to call the land they built it on home. It was a trying process to accept that the land my mother first held me in her arms never really wanted me to stay.
I moved back home to Melbourne permanently after I graduated high school to pursue my tertiary education at the University of Melbourne. I was in love with our openness to discussion and the thriving bustle of immigrants that call Australia home as well. Since Day 1 here, I took part in countless STEM initiatives: including representing Australia in an international science competition twice and speaking in front of hundreds of people, but still felt out of place. It was not because people were unkind or unwelcoming, quite the opposite actually, but because no one “seemed” to share my struggle of having to fight to belong.
However, a lesson I learnt is that your community is willing to listen to your story if you are willing to share it. By sharing mine, I found so many others that shared a similar narrative. By speaking about our struggles, whether as Women in STEM, as immigrants, or as someone economically disadvantaged, we acknowledge that they are there. Our dialogue becomes bigger and bigger until they are unavoidable. I am a loud advocate for a diversity in thought in a functional society, one where bias and prejudice is not necessarily erased but acknowledge and worked on. Education is a starting point for seeds of discussion, and I’m eternally thankful to the University for not only galvanizing my intellectual pursuits but supporting and sharing our stories.
The future is bright because people like you and I will make it so.