Moving forward
For young Niaja Farve, one thing was certain: She was going to college, whether she liked it or not. She grew up in Gaithersburg, Md., with her mother, who made it clear that Farve would be the first in her family to pursue education past high school. “From the get-go, she was very serious about the whole college thing,” Farve says, “and very serious about going to the best place possible that we could afford.” Her mother made sure Farve kept her grades up and stayed attuned to scholarship opportunities. Birthday money went straight into a college fund. Farve showed an aptitude for science and math early on; when, in high school, a teacher mentioned offhand that, “If you’re good at math and science, you should do engineering,” the discipline piqued her interest. “Engineering was interesting because it was application,” Farve says. “I felt like scientists were the people who discovered new things,...