What is it like to study STEM as a woman of color at Harvard
Studying neurobiology both exercises and expands my intellectual curiosity, especially when it comes to the “hows” and “whys” of human behavior.
Studying neurobiology both exercises and expands my intellectual curiosity, especially when it comes to the “hows” and “whys” of human behavior. My ascent into neuroscience quickly taught me that behavior does not happen in a vacuum. However, this means that in order to understand human behavior, we must come to understand the mechanisms of the human experience through the smallest lenses.
For example, building an understanding of neuroscience not only means looking at the brain but, it starts with understanding how individual ions allow neurons to communicate with each other. In short, when one begins to study neuroscience, they are faced with a lot of content!
From my experience, especially as a woman of color, the amount, complexity, and nuances of the content can cause two major hurdles. The first is feeling like everyone else knows what’s going on and that you are the only one who is confused. I often had moments where I felt like I must have missed something because everyone around me appeared to be doing just fine. Firstly, it is important to recognize that everyone has and/or will struggle with the content at some point, and at the end of the day you are there to learn, and so inherently are not expected to know everything. I also had a professor tell me once that you will not learn everything from a course the first time you take it. Learn what you can, and rest assured that more opportunities will arise for you to learn that skill.
While this is an important big picture idea to keep in mind, there are also things you can do in the moment to help you feel oriented! TIPS: ask for help, both from friends in your class and teaching staff and work with peers who you trust on all collaborative assignments. Trust is important because a study group will only be helpful if you feel comfortable asking questions and explaining your answers such that you can both inform and be informed by your study partners. The sheer amount of content you are often asked to absorb can also leave you feeling overwhelmed and constantly short on time.
My TIPS: Start your assignments as early as possible and schedule out a detailed plan of how you plan to complete it (do a little at a time!). Starting early allows you to break the assignment into manageable and less intimidating sections (i.e. complete one question a day). This also allows you to figure out what topics you struggle with early on and get your questions answered. The greatest thing about being a STEM major, however, is the unbeatable feeling of accomplishment you get when you do figure out a chemistry mechanism or a math problem that you struggled through! In these moments, I strongly encourage you to celebrate your successes and remind yourself why you are doing what you’re doing!
As a woman, the challenges of STEM do not necessarily stop once you leave the classroom. There still exists a lot of bias towards women’s ability to succeed in STEM fields. Most of these biases are rooted in archaic notions that women are not “rational enough” to excel in fields that require logic. Most misconceptions I have personally heard sounds like: “I never would have guessed YOU would do that”, “That’s the last thing I would expect you to say!”, “oh wow, you must be so smart. That’s intimidating”.
Often, in the media, women in STEM fields are portrayed as anti-social, lacking femininity or cold and calculating. I became a STEM major because I followed my general intellectual curiosity. When I got to school I just continued to take classes that sounded interesting and one day I looked up and realized that they were all pointing towards neurobiology research. My first experience conducting research in a lab environment and was deeply formative. I was able to learn an exorbitant amount of basic and translational science from both a technical and logistic perspective. I learned general lab etiquette, observed the paper drafting and review process, and became familiar with grant writing. At the end of my fellowship, I presented my own data for the very first time and I was hooked!
I always cite this first research experience as the watershed moment during which I decided that I wanted to pursue research. The thing I love most about being a neuroscientist is the creativity and problem solving involved in research. I love trying to figure out how to design an experiment that can answer my specific question. It is both incredibly humbling and exhilarating to try to research the human brain. Neuroscience is particularly amazing because brain function is foundational to human emotion, behavior, sickness, and health. Understanding “human nature” is powerful and has an infinitely beneficial application.
Ellery is a content creator @Mascot. She is studying Neurobiology at Harvard University.
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