“I was asked to speak about leadership and scholarship, and I thought it would be useful if I spent some time debunking what I have found to be myths or misconceptions about leading and learning. There are sayings we use so frequently that they seem to have become established fact. Upon closer inspection, it was these cliches about battling, vision and passion that don’t always fit nicely with our lived experience. I was invited here today to speak with you about my experience becoming the first black women to earn a nuclear engineering degree from MIT, and I wanted to be sure to paint an accurate picture of how that happened and what advice I found useful, and not so useful, along that path.”