🔬  The Access Project is passionate about helping more women into science, technology, engineering or mathematics (STEM) subjects. Last year 52% of our female students went on to study a STEM subject at university.

Nihal joined The Access Project when she was in Year 10. Now, Nihal is in Year 12 at one of our London schools, and is getting group tutorials in Maths.

Nihal has been able to develop her confidence through the group tutorials. “I’ve gotten rid of my fear of being wrong. Our tutor has a very positive approach to mistakes, and asks us to explain everything in depth, before he lets us know how he would have done it. It’s helped me not to stay silent when I’m confused.”

For Nihal, learning has become a more positive experience thanks to her tutorials. “I’ve learned to ask for things as soon as I have a question. This has definitely helped in my communication. Before I’d be scared to ask if I didn’t know something right away. Now I’m even more confident when people ask me for directions in the street.”

“I never found a woman that was as passionate about STEM as I am”

At first, Nihal was unsure about pursuing a STEM subject. “I was shy about voicing my love for sciences, because I didn’t see a lot of women that did science. Most of my teachers at school were men, and my tutors were men too. I never found a woman that was as passionate about STEM as I am.”

Nihal got to meet women working in STEM through The Access Project. “When they allowed us to go on trips and we got to meet more female scientists, this made me a lot more comfortable with my plans to go into STEM.”

“Physics is the only subject that answered all the questions I had”

Nihal is considering a career in Physics. “If I were to study Physics at university, I would focus on energy. I think having a career that has such an impact on everything around us would be really important to me. Physics is the only subject that answered all the questions I had. I want to be able to do that for other people.”