As of lately, I have been reflecting on how I got to the point of actively choosing not to go into academia. This change in career path was already in the making long before I had any idea it would become my path. I started my research career like many BIPOC first generation students, I was a McNair Scholar. Through this program, I was actively socialized into believing that I was going to be a professor and researcher in academia. And honestly, I loved this idea. I loved the idea of being able to advise other Latinas like myself through the PhD process, but what I did not know was that academia was more than just working with students, it is a whole host of structural inequities that I would throw myself into simply to survive and hope that I could make it. But let’s start at the beginning... So I started graduate school with a plan to become a professor after I finished my PhD, move back to AZ, and live my happy dandy life! But then...I encountered my first road block… studying communities of color at prominent Research 1 universities. I earned my PhD from Penn State, which is in central PA. Meaning there are not many communities of color nearby to study and learn from. This rude awakening happened when I was actively doing data collection with my adviser and another lab in Harrisburg, PA which is an hour and half from Penn State. An hour and half may not seem that far away, but that distance and time starts adding up when you have to travel twice a week and carry on with course work and grad school milestones. The first few months of data collection honestly were fun! It was new to me, I was getting to work directly with families, and learning the ins and outs of data collection on the ground level. But all of this quickly got old 6 months into data collection. It was very stressful when you would work to make all the preparations for data collection, only to have one of the four families show up for their interviews. Or even worse when you have to give up your entire weekend to collect data on 10 families and then return to your regularly scheduled routine on Monday. And to my surprise this was just the beginning of all this work, because after we completed this project, our lab was conducting a project being led by our team. It was a lot. It was exhausting and after a while, I honestly was not enjoying research anymore. And to add to the lack of joy, I got very sick for three weeks! I remember week 2 into being sick (I had never in my life been that sick), I broke down crying because I was losing hope. At that moment, I questioned what I was doing in grad school and if it was for me. This moment of darkness, opened the door for me to see what was beyond academia. At that moment, I was inspired to look beyond the ivory tower. From that moment on, I decided to not go into academia, but I did not know what the hell came next to be very honest with you all. Everything I shared above with you happened during my 1st and 2nd year of grad school and what came next was where it all turned around for me. In the spring of my 2nd year, I attended a conference. I already had the idea of not going into academia so I attended a non-academic career panel. At the panel, I asked if I want a non-academic career. What should I do? And the panlist simply responded “get an internship”. I was like cool! Get an internship, I think I can do that. And sure enough I DID NOT KNOW how to do that. In year 3, I kept trying to explore what a non-academic career meant to me. I attended panels in my department and at conferences, but I was still not in the know. But then in the spring of my 3rd year, I got an email from my IES fellowship listserv that IES was looking for interns in their National Center for Special Education Research. While I do not focus on special education research, I thought it was worth a short especially because I was an IES predoctoral fellow. I plead that you all follow my example in throwing your name in the hat even if you are not the ideal or best fitting candidate because you never know what may come from it! Sure enough, I submitted my materials and hoped for the best. I actually interviewed for the internship! They were interested in me! I was super excited and I am pretty sure my excitement could be felt in my phone interview. But then the difficult news came, I was not being offered the internship. And it was simply because of fit and not because they did not think I was qualified. The person who interviewed me did tell me that she forwarded my application over to the National Center for Education Research because she thought very highly of me and that I would be a perfect fit for NCER. I was devastated by the rejection, but what came next is what literally opened the 100s of doors that I now have open to me. NCER was actually still looking for interns. The next day I interviewed for a summer internship with NCER and 3 days later I was offered my first summer internship! Summer of 2018 I was headed to D.C. for a summer internship in the U.S. Department of Education. I couldn’t believe how I somehow managed to make that all happen, especially for a first generation Latina student who was still learning so much about the social capital she was missing! Summer 2018 was the best summer of my life. I LOVED my internship. I LOVED the team I got to work with! I LOVED all the projects I was working on! I also enjoyed all the folks at NCER who were truly invested in helping me learn all I could about non-academic careers by connecting with so many people in the D.C. network. To this day, I am still in touch or mentored by folks I met during this internship. And it opened my eyes to the BIG wide world of non-academic spaces. There are SO MANY PLACES and things you could do with your PhD outside of academia that you can't even begin to imagine (I plan to do a whole blog post about this soon!). It is safe to say that I came back to Penn State with my heart so full and with a new found purpose that fueled me to finish my PhD. Because the dissertation phase of my PhD was rough and having this fire relit in me honestly is what got me through. I ended up going back to the U.S. Department of Education for Summer 2019 for a joint internship in the Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Program Development and White House Initiative for the Education Excellence of Hispanics. I actually landed these internships because of folks I had met the summer before. Networking and relationships go way further than you think! This second time around I fell in love with federal service. I want to be a federal servant and serve the U.S. with my PhD. And today, I am still figuring out what exactly I want to do in the federal government (although if you are close to me you already know my dream job, and once I land it I will share it with the world!). I am currently serving as an SRCD Fellow at the Administration for Children and Families. I do know I want to be a federal servant. We need more Latinx leaders in the government to push programs and policies that serve the Latinx population. So if you find yourself in a place where you are questioning what you want to do, give yourself the space to explore! Although, I did not go into academia. I think academia has the potential to be an amazing place and I know many friends and scholars who are still on that path. I will cheer them on and support them in any way that I can because we need PhDs everywhere, academia and non-academic spaces. What really matters is that you find that passion, that thing about whatever path you choose that lights the fire inside of you that will keep you going when things get hard or boring. Because I can tell whatever route you take you will still face challenges because such is life. I encourage you to use the freedom in grad school to not only build your research niche, but also to build and discover the person you are and want to be. I honestly think learning and discovering who I am was the most valuable thing I gained from my PhD. I am now confident and secure about where I am headed because I am doing the internal work of learning who I am and valuing myself. Remember at the end of the day a career is just a small piece of the amazing person that you are! Do not allow grad school or your career define you, let it just be a part of you. You are more than your PhD, your career, or the papers you publish. I hope me sharing this part of my complex story inspires you to put yourself out there, take some risks, and do things that not everyone else does because you never know what you will learn or even better what you will gain! With much love, Lorena Comments are closed.
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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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