I want to start off by saying that I had a blast at this year’s ASCEND conference! I was thrilled to meet so many driven individuals and young professionals during the course of this event! This three-day journey began around 9 AM on Tuesday, July 30th. My parents and I decided to drive to Vegas because we were departing from Phoenix, and it was a scenic 5-hour drive.
After we arrived at our hotel (which was a great part of this experience by the way), I got ready to attend the dinner at Luchini, along with Stella, Kaley, and Michelle. During the dinner, we all got to know each other better and planned for the next couple of days at ASCEND. I was thrilled to see what the conference had in store for us!
The second day of being in Vegas consisted of attending the conference early so that Stella, Kaley, and I could watch Michelle on the Astro-Debates from front-row seats! (She killed it by the way!) We wandered around a little bit to grab some merch and get familiar with the companies that were in attendance at the expo hall. Before we knew it, we were finishing up lunch and getting ready to head over to the ballroom where we’d be speaking. Stella’s grandma (who’s really funny and sweet) joined along with my amazing parents to watch us all speak on the panel. We all introduced ourselves and answered questions from Michelle, as well as the audience, to give everyone a better idea of our journey with Higher Orbits and our careers in the vast field of space.
Speaking on this panel was a great learning experience, and I got to understand how both Kaley and Stella came along during their space experience. We are all in different stages of our early life, which made our perspectives unique during this panel. Stella is finishing up high school and applying to colleges, I just graduated high school and am attending Arizona State University, and Kaley just graduated from Embry Riddle and joined Lockheed Martin! Our session ended with lots of pictures, smiles, Instagram posts, and business cards! We stayed back for about an hour and got to know some of the others in the room, but soon after, we found ourselves heading to the post-event dinner! There, we found many Olympic-themed sweet treats, as well as munchies from different countries around the world; this was definitely a nice way to engage in friendly conversations and network!
Our conference day came to an end, and we snagged some photos and ribbons before we left. We had to get ready for the last day of the conference.
Kaley and I decided to sleep in an hour or two extra for day 3. I had picked out a couple of morning sessions to attend, including the AIAA scholarship presentation; I joined the Diversity Scholars team to get my headshot taken. As soon as that was finished, I met up with Kaley and Michelle, and we spoke a little bit over some lunch. (Stella we missed you on the last day!!) We all had soaked up a lot of information, met many people, connected, posted, and networked over these couple of days.
Before heading out, I made sure to visit the ASU stand, which I did not expect to be there! It was from the Thunderbird campus, but I learned that there’s a pretty big Aeronautics and Aerospace program at the Polytechnic campus, where I’m headed this fall! One of the individuals I met had mentioned that fact after our speaking session on day 2, so I decided to look more into that. All in all, the knowledge and experience (and pictures) gathered from this event were truly part of another out-of-this-world experience, and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to meet industry professionals and gain their perspective on various fields of space engineering expertise.
I want to thank Michelle again for inviting me to be a part of this year’s ASCEND panel! It is definitely another great memory added to the book, and I had such an amazing time with Kaley and Stella as well. If I had one last thing to say: 10/10 would do it again!
Written by Zahra Ali
