Leyte native Hillary Diane Andales secured that education bag after she got accepted to the astronomy doctoral programs of Yale, Stanford, and more.
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There is just something special about women in STEM. While men have appeared to dominate the fields, history has shown that women can excel in science and technology, too. Continuing to disprove the stereotype, as well as battle the struggles of being underfunded and lacking of support, the local STEM community also shows that Filipinas have the potential to succeed in the field. And one Pinay who is doing just that is Hillary Diane Andales, a 23-year-old college student currently living in the US. The future scientist is set to soar even higher after her acceptance into seven prestigious universities in the US.
MIT GRAD GOES HIGHER
Science has always been a major passion for Hillary Diane Andales, so much so that for college, the Philippine Science High School Eastern Visayas Campus alumna studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In case you didn’t know, MIT is not only one of the most prestigious science colleges in the world, but it’s one of the best in general.
Now 23, the Abuyog, Leyte, native is set to graduate college with an impressive major in Physics and a minor in Astronomy and Science. But if that wasn’t enough, Andales is set to further her studies after she got into the Astronomy doctoral programs of seven prestigious US universities as a scholar. In a Facebook post at the end of February, she revealed that she got into the programs for Yale, Standford, University of Chicago, Columbia, Northwestern University, University of Michigan, University of Virginia, and Boston University. A young boss if we do say so ourselves.
COMING FOR THAT DOCTORATE
“After almost two decades of moving toward this dream, I have the privilege of getting paid to study galaxies for the next 6 years. The road getting here was tough. I moved away from my home in the Philippines to a foreign (yet wonderful) place that endlessly made me question myself…In my sophomore and junior years, I suffered through my physics classes, bombed some midterms, cried about my homework, and burned out,” wrote the young scholar on Facebook.
She continues, “As a 5-year-old girl living in the small town of Abuyog, Leyte, I never imagined that this path was possible for me.” She has yet to reveal where she’ll study to get her Ph.D. in Astronomy and Astrophysics, but we have no doubt she’ll excel wherever she goes.
This isn’t the first time she’s made headlines though. A few years ago, she became the first-ever Filipino winner of the Breakthrough Junior Challenge with a video that showed off her massive potential for science and studying the earth. May her success be a reminder of the need to support women, especially young girls in STEM.
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