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| Posing with poster |
1. Firstly, I had to get over my own version of imposter syndrome, and remind myself that I deserved to be where I was. After being accepted to do HBREX (the Human Biology Research Exploration program), I felt like I’d suddenly attained something that had felt unattainable only one year before. And I felt like I couldn’t possibly be qualified for this.
I remember how overwhelmed I felt at the end of my freshman year, just absolutely and mentally exhausted and drained from the toll that Spring quarter had taken on me. I was ready to get away from Stanford, and spent my entire summer back home in Trinidad with family, while friends did “cool” things like research internships on campus or volunteered around the globe. I wondered if I would ever have knowledge to reach that level. I remembered the first time I saw a friend’s research poster rolled in a tube for safekeeping, thinking “it doesn’t get more legit than that”. How in heck were people so knowledgeable about something that they were able to contribute to research that professors have been conducting for years? Though I was excited about HBREX, I felt like I was one year behind my peers, because it felt like a lot of people had already dappled in research during their freshman summer, and were moving on to bigger, better, or different things. I felt uncertain, unfit, and like a complete fraud once that research stipend hit my bank account. But somehow, from the first week of my summer "on the job", I realized that you don’t come in knowing everything. You come in with energy and interest and readiness to learn more, and over time you dive deeper and deeper into your topic and learn enough to start formulating hypotheses and beginning the problem-solving process. Which brings me to my next point:
I remember how overwhelmed I felt at the end of my freshman year, just absolutely and mentally exhausted and drained from the toll that Spring quarter had taken on me. I was ready to get away from Stanford, and spent my entire summer back home in Trinidad with family, while friends did “cool” things like research internships on campus or volunteered around the globe. I wondered if I would ever have knowledge to reach that level. I remembered the first time I saw a friend’s research poster rolled in a tube for safekeeping, thinking “it doesn’t get more legit than that”. How in heck were people so knowledgeable about something that they were able to contribute to research that professors have been conducting for years? Though I was excited about HBREX, I felt like I was one year behind my peers, because it felt like a lot of people had already dappled in research during their freshman summer, and were moving on to bigger, better, or different things. I felt uncertain, unfit, and like a complete fraud once that research stipend hit my bank account. But somehow, from the first week of my summer "on the job", I realized that you don’t come in knowing everything. You come in with energy and interest and readiness to learn more, and over time you dive deeper and deeper into your topic and learn enough to start formulating hypotheses and beginning the problem-solving process. Which brings me to my next point:
2. Focusing on one thing for 10 weeks is a far cry from juggling 3-4 classes for 10 weeks, 3 times a year. That is, it's a more rewarding experience for so many reasons: a) You don’t have hard deadlines for learning materials; there are no midterms or PSETS or essays due - instead, you learn at your own pace, and simply having that pressure gone makes it so much easier to focus! b) Your learning isn’t dictated by a syllabus. For me, google scholar became my guide, and one article would lead to another and another, and sometimes it took days for me to find what I was looking for, but then it was like a breakthrough that was completely worth it, and luckily I could afford to spend days on a topic because I didn’t have to worry about usual class deadlines! c) You don't have homework when you get home. I mean, I know a lot of people who took their work home with them, but save for a couple odd days, I was not one of those people. I appreciated the segregation between my "work life" and the rest of my life. And so did my research team, as evidenced by an email one Friday afternoon from my supervisor, who said something to this effect: "Everyone stop working! It's 5:19pm on a Friday, go home - we will resume this conversation next week". If that wasn't confirmation that work belonged at work and no where else, I don't know what was. And I was immensely grateful for that.
3. The more you know, the more you realize you don’t know. After completing the Human Biology core and interning with a nutrition studies group, this mantra rings loud and clear in my head: “Correlation does not imply causation”. There’s no way to know for sure whether changes in hormones cause appetite changes or if sleep duration really changes hormone levels, just because a bunch of studies have shown repeated associations between them. But the deeper and deeper you go, the more you realize that we really don’t know what exactly causes anything else to happen in the human body. We’ve surely learned a whole lot, and now understand our body systems down to the cellular level, but some things remain fuzzy and are simply theories that evidence supports, until proven wrong. It was fascinating to me to come face to face with this theory about theories: that theories are just that, theories (what a mouthful, I know). That they are not a clear indication of the way things are, but simply ideas put forth that propose the way things work, given the current evidence. But no matter how much evidence supports the theory, we will never know whether it is true or not. Which is mind boggling when you think about all the things we’ve learnt in our lives - no wonder science is ever growing and ever-changing.
4. Over these 10 weeks, I began to pinpoint ways that I've grown. There is a confidence in my abilities that was not there before. Before, any doubt about whether I was “qualified” enough for a task has been replaced with a confidence that I can and will complete this task to the best of my ability, and that’s all I can ask of myself. And if I felt like I didn’t have the tools to do something to the best of my ability, I can google it, or ask a question, and those questions will not go in vain. Hence point #5:
5. Ask questions! While there are some questions that can be answered with some googling, sometimes it’s nice to have someone explain it to you, so don’t be afraid to ask. Plus, sometimes the question that you hold back because you're afraid to ask is the very question that needs to be asked. There were countless times this summer when something didn’t sit right with my brain, and I asked a question for clarification, and it turns out that that thing that didn’t sit right was actually an error, or a discrepancy, and the person that I was working with was grateful to me for pointing it out. So, hey, ask away.
6. All jobs - even the most glamorous-seeming careers - have a nitty gritty. Yeah, “research” sounds cool, doesn't it? What comes to mind when you hear “research”? Maybe it’s people with goggles, lab coats, syringes, gloves, or results tables, or graphs, or cool diagrams and revolutionary findings (at least, that's what comes to my mind). But hey, to get those revolutionary, or more often not-so-revolutionary findings, there’s a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes. There’s the grant writing (applying for money to fund one’s study), developing a study method, doing research about the research you intend to conduct to see what’s been done before, creating questionnaires/materials for participants, proofreading, editing, updating for clarity/modern days’ sake, recruiting participants, budgeting, scheduling visit times or data collection points, figuring out the best way to collect data, cleaning up data, analyzing data, collaborating on a paper, coding the results, creating data tables/graphs/charts, proofreading the paper, submitting papers, making changes/revisions as needed…and the list goes on. The point is that a lot of long hours are spent doing the things that no one talks about - the not-so-fun things like laboring with paper bags, gloves and ice packs to assemble stool-collection kits for an upcoming study (yes, my fellow intern and I did this, and while it wasn’t the most terrible menial work you can think of - there was something satisfying about the routine-ness of it all - we still spent many hours on it that could have been spent doing something more intellectually rewarding).
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| my never-ending collage of post-its/to-do lists |
8. Mental health over every damn thing? I would like to declare this with no doubt whatsoever, but I must leave the question mark because while there’s growing awareness of mental health and the issues surrounding it, the stigma still hovers and is perpetuated. And I find myself at the center of this, as both a victim and a perpetuator of the stigma. Because there were 2 days this summer when I really needed the day off. The first day was about 4 weeks in, when I woke up feeling like absolute crap. In case anyone hadn’t noticed by now, mental and emotional exhaustion takes a noticeable toll, and you need to regroup in order to function effectively. So that day, I told my supervisor that I wasn’t feeling well, via a vague text implying that I was physically sick. I couldn’t yet bring myself to admit that it was actually mental/emotional state of unwellness that made me unable to work that day. But the next day at work, our of some desire to be upfront, I mentioned that it wasn’t physical sickness, but an emotionally rough time. And while my supervisor was empathetic and understanding, I couldn’t help but wonder afterwards: did I really need that day off or was I spoiling or somehow coddling myself? I’m lucky I worked in an environment where it was okay to “take the day off” or “work from campus”, but If I didn’t have the option to stay home, would I have survived the day? Probably yes. You do what you gotta do, right? So I can’t help but wonder where the line is drawn between “self care” and “coddling”. It’s hard to admit that sometimes I need to take it easy on myself, because that still feels like some kind of weakness on my part, no matter how hard I try to convince myself that it isn’t. I’m slowly starting to learn that taking care of yourself isn’t a weakness. It’s a necessity.
9. There’s not always a direct clear-cut career path (and thank the Lord for that because this girl doesn’t know what she sees herself doing after university). I got the opportunity to talk to some members of the research group with whom I worked, and let me tell you, they have some crazy round-a-bout stories about how they ended up where they are now. I’ve met a lady who is a trained professional chef then decided to go to med school, and now works as a practicing MD, a part-time teacher, and a researcher. I’ve met people who worked in various industries, then waitressed, then taught a class, before diving into the research life. I met someone who went to Thailand to study botany and medicinal plants and now finds herself teaching and doing research part-time. And it was so refreshing to hear these stories and know that I don’t have to have one set career path that I intend to follow for the rest of my life. It’s okay to take opportunities as they come, and though I value routine and security, I actually can’t wait to see what the as-yet-unclear future holds, and what kinds of opportunities end up coming my way. It’s comforting to know that I don’t have to go into one field and stick with it forever, that I have the flexibility to change my mind and change my career, and that just because I don’t end up liking something, doesn’t mean I can’t learn from the experience. It is freeing to know that I’m not bound to one thing, and that the world is mine to seize. (It does not escape me that this is very much attached to my privilege, as someone who does not feel the financial burden of supporting anyone but myself in the future).
10. I learned to appreciate my university life. While I enjoyed the predictability that came with going to the same office everyday for 10 weeks and working on a single project (or a group of projects around a single theme), I couldn’t help but miss the variability and unpredictability of school life. No two days are the same, that’s for sure. You’ll always have different classes, meetings, encounters, emotional states…while it’s a roller coaster, it’s also a learning curve, and one that I’m starting to embrace. Besides, it’s nice to know that if I decide I need a day off, I can - for the most part - take a day off. And if I need to go to the bank, I can pop across on the day my classes end at 2pm. And there’s constant movement and stimulation happening, even if it does get exhausting. But you can bet that during the school year, this constant stimulation is the exact thing that I vent about to anyone who would listen. What can I say - the grass is always greener.
I'll end by saying that I know people have vastly different experiences with what we call “research”. At Stanford, which prides itself on being a “research university”, there are countless opportunities for undergrads to become involved in research, whether it be lab work, traveling to new countries, or interning with a research group. Some people have great experiences with supportive mentors, others don’t. Luckily, I had a positive experience. But I'd love to hear perspectives from anyone who's had a research experience anywhere in the world. There's so much we can learn from each other!