NASA astronaut inspires Columbus students

As a teenager in Spokane, Wash., before she graduated high school in 1997, Anne McClain heard a trusted adult advise her to be "more realistic" about her career choice "because not many people become an astronaut."

McClain at first thought, "Somebody gets picked. Why not me?"

But she started believing the advice, so she checked with her mother, who asked whether that trusted adult works for NASA.

"Well," McClain replied, "no."

"Well," her mother advised, "I guess their opinion doesn't count then."

What counts, McClain told 150 Muscogee County students Friday during her visit to the Columbus State University Coca-Cola Space Science Center, is this:

"If you're going to get to where you want to go, there's going to be people along the way that don't believe in you," she said. "But the most important thing is that you believe in you. And I want you to listen to only the people around you who also believe in you."

Believing, however, wouldn't have been enough, McClain insists, for her to get on a plane by herself and fly across the country to attend the United States Military Academy and earn a bachelor's degree in what was considered West Point's most difficult major, mechanical/aeronautical engineering. Believing wouldn't have been enough to become a decorated major in the U.S. Army and log more than 2,000 flight hours in 20 different aircraft. And believing wouldn't have been enough to become one of eight members of the 21st astronaut class, which NASA selected in June 2013.

After two years of training, she is qualified for a space mission and awaits her assignment.

"It's not about the dream; it's about the doing," she told the sixth-graders from Eddy Middle School, before a session with fifth-graders from Wesley Heights Elementary School. "Having a dream is that big hope out there. It's so important to have hope and have a direction. But what you do, the choices that you make every day, are the important part.

"Everyone that's going to be an astronaut in 30 or 40 years is sitting right where you're sitting right now. Nobody's any different. The same thing with every future doctor or teacher. They're exactly where you are. So it's important to dream, but it's important to do."

Then she told the students a story about the word "smart."

Physics is considered one of the hardest courses at West Point. All the sophomores take it. The average grade on the tests is 70 percent. They take them for three hours on Saturdays. "They're painful," she said.

Before her first physics test, McClain thought this would be the point where she wouldn't succeed. So re-read every word in every chapter and reworked every problem the students were given the past three months.

"I didn't sleep," she said. "I drank coffee all night. I was up all night, from Wednesday to Saturday."

Not only did she ace the test, she earned a 99 while the average grade was a 72.

McClain, who played softball for Army, was warming up when a teammate told her, "I wish I was smart like you so I didn't have to study."

Such an attitude is a cop-out, McClain told the students.

"We like to say that other people are smart, because it gives us an excuse for us not to have what they have," she said. " The next time somebody in your class does really well on a test, I want you to tell them, 'Hey, good job. You worked really hard for that.' Then you have to look at yourself and say, 'Maybe I didn't work hard enough for it.'"

So the key to her success, McClain said, is that "I outworked most people, and you can too. That's a choice. That is absolutely a choice, no matter where you're starting from."

And it takes stepping out of our comfort zone.

"When I got on a plane and flew to West Point, I thought to myself, 'What the heck am I doing?' This is really scary. I'm going to a college that I don't know if I'm going to make it through. I'm going to a state that I've never been in. I'm flying 3,000 miles away from the only place I've ever called home."

But she persevered - and gained the courage to face more fears.

"It was scary when I had to take the physics test, and it was scary when I applied for a scholarship I didn't know I could get," she said. "And it was really scary when I signed up to take mechanical engineering and I had multiple officers at West Point that said, 'You know it's the hardest major here. Are you sure? Are you sure you can handle that?"

McClain told the students, "Nobody's sure that they can handle it until they handle it. So you just have to go. You need to be sure of anything when you take that first step. What you do need to do is get on that plane. You need to take that class. You need to study harder. You need to do the thing you think you can't do, because here's the trick: Your dreams don't live in your comfort zone."

She showed the students a diagram that depicts the comfort zone as a small circle and the dreams - "where the magic happens" - as a larger circle. The comfort zone grows and encompasses more of those dreams, she said, each time we step out of it.

"You're going to get more and more sure of yourself," she said. "The next time I sat on an airplane, thinking, 'I'm terrified. What the heck am I doing?' It's when I was flying down to NASA for my interview."

She thought this would be the point where she fails.

"But I got on that plane anyway," she said, "because I knew that feeling."

Because she had previous experiences of stepping outside her comfort zone - and it grew larger each time.

McClain's message resonated with Eddy sixth-graders Kaitlyn Rooks and Diamante Smith.

"She taught us to never give up," Kaitlyn said.

Diamante added, "If somebody tells you that you can't do it, never listen. Keep working hard for what you want to get in life."

CSU is a partner with the Muscogee County School District in boosting education in the STEM subjects: science, technology, engineering and math. Through the university's contract with the school district, all MCSD classes in kindergarten through sixth grade visit the center at least once per year.

"Before you can educate, you have to inspire them," said Shawn Cruzen, the center's director. "We want them to know that, no matter where they grow up, they can go off and do amazing things. There's a path for you, no matter where you go to school, to get to those kinds of places. So that's why we want to put them in front of people who made it. They're no different than you."

U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop, who brought McClain to the center, told the students, "You are going to be the leaders of tomorrow. As we sit in our rocking chairs, we'll be depending on you to keep our country strong and to take us to great heights."

Mark Rice, 706-576-6272. Follow him on Twitter@MarkRiceLE.

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Click on this story at www.ledger-enquirer.com to view a video of NASA astronaut Anne McClain's visit to the Columbus State University Coca-Cola Space Science Center.

This story was originally published October 30, 2015 at 6:32 PM with the headline "NASA astronaut inspires Columbus students ."