Teniola Ajagbe decided she wanted to go to space at age nine. Now a senior at Gwendolyn Brooks College Prep, Ajagbe was inspired by watching “Hidden Figures”—the based-on-a-true-story movie about the pioneering Black women at NASA in the 1960s. Today, she’s one small step (or one giant leap) closer to her dream having just been admitted to Northwestern University on a full-ride scholarship following her participation in the University of Chicago’s Space Explorers program for Chicago public high school students.
The free Space Explorers Program, offered by the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics in partnership with the Office of Civic Engagement, gives students like Ajagbe the opportunity to engage with college-level math and science course work and interact with astronomers, physicists, University faculty, and labs.
For Ajagbe, who lives in the Hegewisch neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side, Space Explorers was an opportunity to immerse herself in the field she’d always dreamed of but never experienced up close.
“Going into Space Explorers and building a satellite and actually working with space-related stuff, it just really strengthened my desire to go into that field,” Ajagbe said. “I was like, okay, this is something that I could see myself doing.”
The experience was also a chance to get a feel for college life. Before participating in the program, Ajagbe—who will be a first-generation college student—had never been on a college campus. But after working in UChicago’s labs alongside UChicago students and faculty and her week-long residential stay, which is included in the Space Explorers program each summer, Ajagbe says she felt more comfortable and confident with the idea of student life.
“I had never been away from my mom for so long and it’s just me and my mom so I think me getting used to being on a college campus also helped her,” she said. “I felt really comfortable with the other participants so it was reassuring.”
When she heads off to Northwestern in the fall, Ajagbe is looking forward to majoring in mechanical engineering with a focus on aerospace, making her mark on the aerospace field, and one day paying her STEM experiences forward.
"As someone whose passion for science was inspired by the media that surrounded me, I want to be able to do the same for those that look like me. It’s important to see representation in STEM fields, and I hope to show future generations that we can also make groundbreaking discoveries,” she said. “There’s still so much of the universe that hasn’t been explored yet, so I want to play a part in that.”
Watch Ajagbe share her Space Explorers program experience on Fox 32.