Kristin Petersen spends her time all over the city, with her City Colleges of Chicago courses at Harold Washington and Truman, and her job in real estate. She’s now about to add one more destination—Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Kristin had the opportunity to participate in the on-site component of NASA’s Community College Aerospace Scholars (NCAS) program in February of 2018 after learning about the experience through the HWC Stem Club, going through the five week NCAS class online, receiving perfect scores in both the course and on the final paper, and getting accepted to the travel part of the program, which is fully paid for by NASA.
Kristin juggles a full-time work schedule with CCC coursework, but she’s still on track to receive her associate degree in May of 2019. From there, she plans to transfer to a four-year university – her top choices are CCC transfer partner University of Illinois in Champaign and Purdue, mostly because of those schools’ outstanding engineering reputations.
Kristin, 28, has her eyes on a career in electrical engineering, and when she’s not in school or at work, she’s getting a head start by building robots. While pursuing her degree, she makes sure to take advantage of science and math tutoring and advising services. She especially credits Truman math instructor Andrew Kerr for helping her navigate the sometimes challenging material.