In connecting with many young Latinx scholars that are currently pursuing their PhDs, what I often hear is them questioning whether getting their PhD is worth it and whether they belong in these academic spaces. I am here to tell you that these feelings and questions are 100% natural and normal. I had these questions and concerns come up more often than I wanted them! I know, it feels unfair that other people don’t have to spend all their time proving themselves and their research. Talk about privilege, right?! I am here to remind you that you deserve to be where you are and that everything you are doing matters (and you don’t need to prove yourself to anyone)! Let’s dive into this next segment of Vive La Resistencia! Flash back to Lorena in her second year of graduate school. I finally felt like I was getting in the swing of things in graduate school. I finally felt like I was slowly finding my place in my program and the place that was going to be home for the next few years. Then bam, like a smack right in the face, this all quickly came crumbling down. My stress levels were at an all time high due to doing data collection in my lab, course work, and working extra hard to make sure I felt like I belonged in my program. I knew the stress levels were out of control because I got sick, but not just sick. I was out of commission for a whole month! I was so stressed and so physically sick that all I could possibly do was roll out of bed to go to class and come back and get back into bed. And y’all, for me this was insane, because I love working out everyday and getting out of the house to go work in the lab. But the difficulty I faced just getting to this point really had me questioning whether the PhD was worth it, and whether I was even good enough to do all this! I remember in my agony and pain just breaking down and crying in my bedroom trying to decipher if this PhD was worth all the physical stress that was manifesting in my body. If this has ever happened to you or you have just had a crying party of 1 trying to process these questions, I am right there with you. Do not be ashamed of having strong feelings about these questions. Getting a PhD as a Latinx or BIPOC scholar is no joke! It actually wasn’t it until I graduated that I realized how much of my authentic self I had suppressed during graduate school, despite being such an advocate for myself or other BIPOC scholars in my program. I want to acknowledge and validate that academia is a hard place to navigate every single day. As I said in a recent panel at SRCD, if academia wants to retain and support BIPOC scholars there must be a large cultural and systemic change to make academia a better place! Yes, academia is an exhausting place to exist as a BIPOC scholar, but I can tell you that it is not impossible. Let’s backtrack for a second, I want to acknowledge to you all that I am 99.9% sure that you are not the only one going through these mental battles of “Val La Pena?!?” and “Can I do this!?”. I can tell you even some of my most successful colleagues have fought this mental battle. I think we all do, especially as developmental scientists that naturally want to over analyze all human behavior. Having these feelings or mental battles ever so often is normal, but if you are constantly having these battles I would suggest you find yourself additional support in whatever form works best for you. Even though my mental battles were not pervasive, I got myself into individual and group therapy during graduate school and I cannot even tell you how useful it was for me to have that safe space to process. Find yourself a therapist, a group, authentic friends, or whatever supports will help you get back on your feet. Academia might seem to be a single-player game, but I promise you, your degree will mean just as much (if not more) if you develop and become a part of support systems. And even after this big mental breakdown in my second year and re-evaluating my long-term goals (this is when I decided to pursue a non-academic career), I still had plenty of mental battles and the questions would come back, especially at the most inconvenient times. Some of these times included major milestones such as my comprehensive exam or in the process of publishing as a graduate student. So acknowledge that these mental battles happen and will happen, it is all part of being human. I want to share some useful experiences and tips that may help you navigate the mental battles.
Much Love, Lorena |
AuthorDr. Lorena Aceves unapologetically telling you the real deal about being brown in an academic world, but deciding she is going to be her authentic self and make her wildest dreams come true en esta vida! Archives
November 2022
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