{"id":13426,"date":"2019-11-18T13:34:22","date_gmt":"2019-11-18T18:34:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biology.mit.edu\/?p=13426"},"modified":"2020-10-28T22:29:53","modified_gmt":"2020-10-29T02:29:53","slug":"creating-my-niche-in-grad-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biology.mit.edu\/creating-my-niche-in-grad-school\/","title":{"rendered":"Creating my niche in grad school"},"content":{"rendered":"
Imagine being in a roller coaster that\u2019s on fire, adrift, going full speed. That was my first year at MIT.<\/b> Coming straight from an undergraduate institution in Puerto Rico, it was difficult for me to get used to the fast pace in which topics were taught in a different language and to the amount of work we had to constantly do. Recognizing these struggles, I convinced myself that I had to work even harder. However, towards the end of my first year, I couldn\u2019t help but feel like something was missing. While struggling with that inner voice, I stumbled one day upon my personal statement for graduate school applications. I remember thinking, \u201c<\/span>who<\/span><\/i> wrote this?\u201d. One sentence in particular felt completely foreign to me: \u201cI wish to provide a voice and an example that encourages minority students to pursue a career in science.\u201d How was it that one year into my PhD program, I had completely lost the drive to start paving the path for people that looked and felt like me?<\/span><\/p>\n Being in STEM, it is quite easy to feel that if science isn\u2019t the most important thing in your life, you are probably doing something wrong. For me, however, although science is definitely an important part of my life, it surely <\/span>isn\u2019t<\/span><\/i> my entire life. I realize this isn\u2019t a popular view among my peers, especially at a place like MIT, and it took some time for me to even embrace this mentality. I knew I appreciated my science more when I started doing things that fulfilled me outside the lab. This was clear in my mind, but I didn\u2019t know where to start. <\/span>How could I begin creating my niche in grad school?<\/b><\/p>\n While talking to a friend of mine about my interest in getting involved in diversity initiatives, I learn about a graduate student group called the Biology Diversity Community (BDC). The main mission of this group was to help foster networking amongst underrepresented graduate students in the biology community and connect students to resources that may be helpful. As it turned out, they were looking for volunteers to help plan out activities for the upcoming academic year. I reached out to the organizers, who listened to my ideas on how to create a healthy environment for students with a diverse array of backgrounds. They must have liked those ideas, since they then allowed me to carry out some activities for the semester including one for the MIT Summer Research Program (MSRP). <\/span><\/p>\n