Rich Robinson: Becoming The Professor

(logo whooshing) (upbeat music) - My first experience with the path of being a scientist was this minorities introduction to technology and engineering program at Purdue University.

And I was an eighth grade student.

I had no idea what a chemist was or what a physicist, even what an engineer was.

I remember thinking I wanted to be a bus driver, because I saw the bus guy and I was like, "Well, you know, I could do that job."

And so this program kind of introduced me to what a different life would be, and we got to go to the summer camp program.

There's this bridge building contest, made out of balsa wood, of course.

I really wanted to win that, and I realized that some of the other kids were happy to be there but they also wanted to go out and play and all I had to do in order to beat them was just to work a little bit harder.

And so I stayed in and built my bridge a little bit more.

It paid off in the end.

I was the number one bridge building contest winner of that year.

They gave me a little calculator as a prize, and then all the other kids started calling me Professor.

I don't think I've been given any special gift for any type of math, any type of science.

In order to get through school, I worked a lot harder than everybody else.

If you want it bad enough and if you try hard enough and you go in after class and if you ask the teacher and if you read the book and if you read another book and if you go to the librarian and ask for another book, then you can eventually understand whatever it is you're trying to understand.

And that's the only way I became a professor.

(upbeat music) Because I've been given so many opportunities by affirmative action programs, by minority fellowships, a lot of what I do is a lot of outreach and a lot of give back to the community.

(upbeat music) We had this National Society of Black Engineers on Saturdays, we would have a tutoring session on every Saturday.

I took over the program 'cause it was kind of flailing for a little while and we really built it back up.

We went up to Harlem, we set up tables and got the word out the communities.

I sent posters out, and we really built our base to the point where I could start inviting in people to speak.

And then our final lecture for that year was Horst Stormer, who had just won the Nobel Prize at Columbia.

They didn't really know what the Nobel Prize was, and then somebody asked him how it felt to win the Nobel Prize.

And he goes into his pocket and he pulls out the Nobel Prize.

All these kids got to actually see a Nobel Prize, got to see a Nobel Prize winner, gotta take their picture with a Nobel Prize, and got to understand that science isn't something that's just a few elite people but it's the guy down the street who takes a Saturday, takes four hours on a Saturday to talk to you.

I think anyone who wants to be a scientist can be a scientist.

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