Overview

Helen Penderhues faces many challenges in her career as a science student, an early career researcher, and a PhD student. She faces all of these challenges while she tries so hard to balance her career life with her family life. Balancing family life with a career many times proves extremely arduous for women, especially for women in STEM fields. Along Helen's journey she finds grace, a beacon of light, and destiny. Because Helen continues to move through the challenges she faces along the way she finds help from her best friend named Grace, from her husband named Beacon, and from a department chair named Dr. Destiny Rollins that offers her a second chance at achieving her dreams of STEM. With the help of her support group of three, Helen is able to lift herself out of her many dark places of despair to finally reach her breakthrough into the S.T.E.A.M field. This is a story about grit, perseverance, and sacrifice. The author hopes that this story of a career-minded woman named Helen will inspire more women to pursue their true purpose and callings. This story will hopefully encourage women to accept their right to be ambitious, to be a go-getter, and to be a bit more selfish when caring for themselves through increasing self-care and having self-love.