25. From College Dropout to Graduate Student: Navigating Graduate School Applications & Admissions as a Nontraditional Student

(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to a chat with Uma, with me, your host, Uma R. Chatterjee. On this podcast, I bring together all of my roles as a neuroscientist, researcher, board certified mental health peer specialist, mental health advocate, community builder, and a survivor with lived experience to bring you honest and unfiltered conversations exploring our true human experiences in their fullest form. Every week, I'm bringing you conversations bridging the gap on all things neuroscience, psychology, mental health, lived experience, advocacy, psychedelics, and more. This is a space for raw unfiltered truth to truly explore ourselves for who we are and how we are. I cannot wait to connect with you, answer all of your questions and co-create this with you. Welcome to a chat with Uma. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of a chat with Uma. This episode is kind of the second part of an unofficial series really just on all things non-traditional students and navigating academia or academic pursuits as someone who has taken an unconventional path. And this episode is going to focus specifically on my journey into and through graduate school as a non-traditional student because, as we talked about in the previous episode, I'll about non-traditional students in general in my journey. There is so much in there, there are so many layers, there's so many nuances and considerations and beliefs and fears and circumstances and just so many things that inform the journey of specifically an unotraditional student, especially in something as established and typical, or has a typical number of people and kind of person that goes through the process of being in graduate school. And so I'm here to just like dismantle all of the conceptions and myths about what a student should look like and what a typical student or acceptable student is as someone who has defied the norms and expectations and has found myself in graduate school twice, both as a master student and now a PhD student. So of course, the details of my journey are mine and aren't something that everybody is going to have in common, the particular details and the particular degrees, but that's kind of life with anything that people experience, right? Well, we're not necessarily talking about the details, although sometimes there is synchronicity and that's fascinating, but more than that, if we zoom out, it's the vantage point of someone who has had a different path and has been made to feel other and has simply just not fit into the norm and how we can do it anyway and how we can navigate the very real systemic barriers and misconceptions and really just the unique overall experience of all that a notraditional student goes through to engage with graduate school or professional education, not only because the journey itself is quite unique and different from the typical student trajectory, but even more so, arguably to me, because it's just not something that is really emphasized or publicized or uplifted. I mean, occasionally you'll see like once in a blue moon, I don't know if you see it, I see it because I'm seeking it out, but like some article about this one person who had a very strange or different path and ended up doing this that or the other thing, but like overall, if anyone who's listening to this is considering graduate school or professional education or just like going back to school even, like one of the first things we do is we Google like how to do this and there's tons of resources online, but almost all of them are geared toward the typical trajectory and just highlighting stories of success of people who followed the very clear cut path and had a very typical timeline and fits a very specific set of rules and boxes of what makes an ideal applicant because let's, we'll get into like the assessment of applicants is very based in and rooted in a very narrow set of criteria that tends to only fit people who followed a typical trajectory. So all that to say, there's hardly any resources or support available relative to the vast majority of people who are not non-traditional students for people like you, people like me who, many of much of the advice didn't apply and honestly made me feel like I really didn't have a chance because of all this advice and all these stories are geared toward and representing people who are not like me. That's inherently telling me that I can't do a net op along and by some stroke of miracle and look, I have ended up here. I'm still confused as to how this has happened, but nonetheless, if I ended up here that I know in my heart that it is at least possible, even if it's not talked about, even if it's underrepresented, this podcast stands for just demystifying it all, talking through it all in a very honest and open way and I have nothing to hide at all. And I just want to share for my experience that someone else can feel less alone and can feel empowered to take steps to own their identities, own their history, go do what they wanna do, make a difference and they belong because of their experiences and we need more people with different life experiences and different trajectories to do all the things that need to be done in different fields. So that's what this episode's about. I am sharing my journey to graduate school and to school in general as an institutional student, how I did it, what I encountered, the entire process of applying in terms of specifically as me with my identity. And I hope that this just sheds so much light on A-Path that you might not have heard of and that you feel like you can do it too. Just a quick few announcements before we begin. Number one, I am so excited to share that I now have a full resource of my website called Features where I have so many of my past events that happen to be recorded and available publicly or at least unlisted to be shared with y'all in one place that answers just so many questions about my research and my advocacy and there's just an amazing number of events I've had, the privilege of doing on my own and with beautiful people in these communities to just share our experiences and hope and my research as well. And so I'm just really excited to finally have my life together enough to have all of this on ever growing page on my website so that that way, like, when asked for resources or like just where is this event, where's that event, especially if people can't attend to just have it all in one place for easy access. So that's gonna be linked in the show notes. There's a ton of events on there. I think some of my favorites or at least the ones that are coming to mind that I get asked the most about are number one, my talk at Breaking Convention this past year. It's a 30 minute talk all about my research at the intersection of psychedelics and its effects on PTSD and comorbid OCD. I've done many different versions of this talk in this presentation, but this one's a 30 minute version. It was at this incredible conference that is, you know, recorded and streamed everywhere. And it also really like provides a primer of my experience as a person and like how my lived experience informed my research, which is a huge component of the way I've navigated my life as a researcher and an advocate. So I would recommend watching that just get to know me in my research and my interests and where I'm coming from better. If that's something that interests you. Also, I have many advocacy videos on there, a lot of things with the International OCD Foundation. So there's particularly one that's really, really powerful to me, it's called grieving time lost OCD with some amazing other advocates and clinicians in the field with some of my favorite people, Reverend Katie O'Don, Ethan Smith, Chris Tronston, Allegra Castins and Kimberly Quinlan. It's just a really raw and vulnerable and open an honest conversation on the time lost to OCD and mental illness and just grief in general about time lost to horrible things. I think it relates to far beyond OCD as well. And in contrast to what I just shared about me as a researcher like this is just super super vulnerable and open and I have no filter in general but especially not on that one. So I would recommend that as a resource for anyone looking for support and navigating time lost to horrible experiences that we didn't have control over. And the last thing that comes to mind which actually is extremely relevant to today's episode is my presentation with the aspiring scientist coalition on my non-traditional path and how that path led to my research in my very unconventional way of pursuing my research projects informed by my lived experience with Dr. Ben Rein and amazing science communicator who you definitely have seen on TikTok or Instagram. It was such an honor to do that event and all of those recordings are available in full on my website. So just check out the link below in the show notes or just head to my website umaarchattergy.com/features and you'll get access to all of those there. Next update I have some really really exciting event updates for you. So first and foremost next Tuesday September 26th at 7pm Eastern 6pm Central for me I'm always calculating. I am so thrilled to share that I am going to be hosting community conversations on the International OCD foundations live streams on basically all social media platforms. It's normally hosted by one of my favorite humans of all time Ethan Smith but because he is getting ready to get married to one of my other favorite humans on earth Katie O'Don. I am going to be taking over and just hanging out online for an hour talking to all of you answering all of your questions. I am so thrilled and excited to be able to host this and to just share my perspective and connect with you all. So please make sure to attend if you feel so called to. I will have it all linked in the show notes with the date and time but it's just logging on to YouTube or Twitter or LinkedIn or Facebook or wherever you want to watch and just hanging out and vibing with me. So yeah join me for community conversations. Next up is kind of a backlog update for two events. So a few weeks ago I actually co hosted community conversations with Tom Smalley another dear friend of mine who is a lead advocate at the IOCDF and that was an awesome conversation with a lot of just truth about recovery and where we're at and dismantling myths about what recovery looks like and just I talked a lot about my lived experience and talked about things that I haven't really said out loud before that just never came to mind to say and it was just a beautiful conversation between both of us just asking each other questions and engaging with the audience so that is available in my repository that I mentioned before. I'll also directly link it in the show notes for you if you want to check it out and also just a few days ago I had the immense privilege and honor to participate on a diversity roundtable specifically on suicide prevention in honor of national suicide prevention month with Dr. Darleen Davis Goodwin, Krista Reed, and Erica McEy for the International OCD Foundation. It was a really powerful livestream with just a lot of truth about being a survivor of suicide, living with suicidal ideation, the intersections of being suicidal or experiencing or having that survivorship alongside living with OCD, how that can greatly inform someone's suicidality, ways to cope, ways to support each other, ways to continue to keep on hope, and I think most importantly just destigmatizing and working to take away the very unnecessary taboo around the conversation on suicide. It was just a really really powerful robust balanced conversation from clinicians and people with lived experience and some people with both. And I just if that interests you at all, if you are part of the community of people who has been impacted by suicide, if you have lived with suicidal ideation at all or if that's just something that you feel allied toward, I would recommend listening to that conversation too. It's I love those people so much and it was such a privilege to have this conversation and to continue it in future months. So that is also when I rep-- my video repository, it is also going to be linked in the show notes to check it out if that calls to you. And very lastly, I guess this is the most exciting announcement of all. I can't tell you everything, but I can tell you that you definitely want to be at the online OCD conference hosted by the International OCD Foundation. Wow, how many times can I mention them in one episode? It's just very pertinent and themed right now, but they are hosting an online version of their conference to make things accessible and open to anyone who wants to attend for an extremely low-barrier to entry, which is going to be on Saturday, October 21st to Sunday, October 22nd. And I'm going to have a really exciting announcement around that and my involvement quite soon. I don't think I can say it quite yet, but I just have to tell you that you should be there. And it's an amazing space to connect with people in the community, to learn about OCD if it interests you or fascinates you or you feel called to it, which I would hope through listening to this podcast, you understand the vastest and complexity of this disorder. And it's a great place to learn in a very accessible way from experts all around the world, from people with lived experience, advocates, everybody. And yeah, I'm going to be playing a role in that. That's quite exciting and such an honor. So I will definitely be there. I'd love for you to join. And with that, I actually have an offer for you. So I have one ticket to the conference to give away to somebody who has not attended an IOCDF conference online or in person in the past. And I would love for it to be you. So if you were interested in attending and you would like to have that ticket, then all I ask is that you reach out to me via email and you let me know that you listen to this episode and you're interested in the ticket and tell me why. And I will hold this open for another two weeks, I think. And after two weeks from everyone who's responded, I will read through them. And I will as long as there's a compelling reason why you'd like it, I will include you in a raffle. And I will raffle it off to somebody. So if that's the thing that interests you, then please email me and let me know why you want to attend and that you heard about it through this podcast. And I will get back to you soon. And I really, really hope that this ticket is supportive to someone who hasn't been able to get engaged with OCD education in this way and is really looking for community and understanding and support whether they have lived experience or just wants to learn about it. So that's an exciting update and I will leave all the details of that again in the show notes. All right, so let's get into this episode all on my journey and story as a non-traditional student getting into grad school. So it would make sense on paper if you know my story right now to get in straight to the PhD side of things, but I actually want to talk about my first attempts and my first experiences with grad school, which were before the PhD, because for me that informed a lot of how I approached my neuroscience PhD applications to a degree. I mean, it's a different field as you're going to hear about like where I started, but I also think that it just goes to show how much being an non-traditional student and all of maybe the baggage and the stigma it carries can really influence or shape people's decisions. And if the whole point of this podcast is to help destigmatize, demystify and encourage and provide hope in this journey, then I could only do that and be of service if I talk about the full story. So let's rewind, I suppose, back to I went back to school, which you can hear all about like the details of going back to school after six years, coming back to a 1.83 GPA after my first attempt, all the reasons why I was a non-traditional student, all of the conditions and all of the things in the last episode as well as more foundational episodes that will be linked in the show notes. So if you are first listening to this, I encourage you to go to the previous episodes, better links to get a better understanding of where I'm coming from. So with all that being said, at that time when I went back to undergrad for my psychology degree, I wasn't sure what I was going to do with my life. If I never in a million years dreamed of graduate school because I didn't even think I could get a bachelor's degree, but in getting closer to the bachelor's degree and feeling like maybe this was possible for me, I had fell in love with neuroscience, but I did not believe I could do it. I didn't believe I had any level of competitiveness, but more importantly, I didn't think I had what it took to understand neuroscience and neurobiology at all. I felt too stupid, too incapable because of how my illnesses and my disorders and conditions and overall disposition and say to being had governed my function at the time and how poorly I had done in the past objectively. I had really internalized those grades and my performance as my inherent capability when logically now I can see and maybe I could logically see them, but I could not believe it. My functionality was entirely dependent on my health and or my lack thereof health, and I indeed had more functionality or capability than I thought possible. But I had this such a strong belief that I wasn't capable and that my grades were going to define me forever and even if I did redeem my grades, which I sort of, I mean not sort of, I did. That same 1.83 GPA ended up graduating with a 3.517, which you know, doesn't sound incredible. Like it's not a 4.0 or like a super high 3.8 or 9, but relative to where I was at and the fact that that is the highest I could get my GPA because I basically retook like every class that I had failed or every class I could take. And from the time that I started at that university to when I had come back six years later and I tried to retake my classes, they changed the policy to where you could not retake a class that you had gotten above a C in which left me with a good number of C pluses that were so freaking frustrating. Like it was in stupid classes like guitar, like and I couldn't take that and it's forever on my GPA and whatever it's fine I guess. But like all that to say I could have, if I didn't have that barrier I could have retook even more classes and gotten higher than 3.517 because I made all A's in my retaking. But nonetheless that is the highest cap I could meet, which is our ready step one in terms of just grade barriers of being evaluated for graduate school right at the gate because at 3.5 in certain populations is not competitive, which sounds so sad but like the level of competition that has exponentially grown since the pandemic which I talked about why in the last episode. But for graduate school and I should say graduate school for particularly biomedical sciences and even some social sciences too. Yeah, it's just become so excessively competitive that 3.5 for the most part like unless someone just an absolute like prodigal superstar on other fronts like usually doesn't cut it. So already kind of I mean it is what it is but it felt very unfair that I couldn't do anything better than that. That was one aspect of just how I was feeling at the time getting close to finishing my bachelor's also I just felt again inherently incapable of doing neuroscience and so in finding some purpose and light and you know starting to do the impossible of getting to bachelor's degree I was like well what more can I do? And I knew that I from the beginning even before everything crashed and burned and I couldn't like the reason I started with a psychology undergrad is because I really really wanted to understand mental illness and psychiatric illness and our mental health in general, how our minds and brains worked and that felt like the most accessible entry point to that question and that interest and again I didn't really know or feel capable of taking a more biological approach to this at the time. So with all that I was like okay clinical psychology I can go become a psychologist I can help treat people do research and that's the closest I can get and that's good enough and so at the time so just and to make this more clear timeline wise I came back to my undergrad at the beginning of 2020 and I finished my undergrad August of 2021 and that's obviously on top of the first few years of college I did very poorly which again is covered in my previous episodes so with that one in three fourths of a year and basically I just was in school nonstop and I was taking like more classes than I should to try to get it done and it did help that during the pandemic because of being chronically ill and like my level of bandwidth I was able to do more classes because I didn't have to travel and exert myself so physically especially in the midst of cancer treatment so I was able to take more classes than I thought I could and my recovery was going decently well so I just was like in school nonstop taking like four classes over the summer six to seven classes on non-semper semesters and then I finished in August of 2021 so in that timeline started back January 2020 and I decided to try to see if I could get into a psychology eclinical psychology PhD program that fall of 2020 to get into start in the fall of 2021 so it was a really rough and uphill battle for that because at that point like when you apply it's the beginning of December and then your transcript or changes like your GPA updates at the end of December so I'm applying with the transcript and GPA basically of like where I ended up after the summer of 2020 which at that point was two semesters worth of classes and it got me from a 1.83 to a 3.0 exactly which is a huge jump in this awesome but a 3.0 applying to PhD programs a very competitive PhD programs like I all but had no chance in that matter I was really hoping that with my midterm grades on there because like I think if my GPA was computed to include the end or basically what my grades are projected to be at the end of that semester just like two weeks after applications were due it was going to be like a 3.2 or 3.3 because again I was like retaking classes and bringing it up progressively with each semester it would have looked better but it's still not great so I already knew that going in like I already had quite a little chance with that especially for the extremely competitive programs and the programs I was interested in because of my research interests and where people were doing the work so there's that I also just generally felt like I had no idea what I was doing because I didn't know where to seek mentorship to apply to graduate level programs as someone who not only just like had such an uphill battle but also just so not traditional in my path and had such a convoluted story to get to that point and how the hell to articulate that in a semi cohesive manner via an application that's very standardized and very like typical like you do in a certain way have a formula and you either get in or don't it's that felt pretty difficult I tried to talk to my recommenders which I had three really amazing recommenders who really had my back and really supported me and you know they were able to encourage me amongst you know my statement of purpose and my application but you know admittedly they didn't really know what to say what to do in terms of like explaining my path because it's not something they typically dealt with in terms of students recommending them so it was you know I was like slightly hopeful because I was like if I can get to this point you know what could happen and that's a good mentality to have in general because I could never have imagined where I am today had I not had that mentality I might not have ever actualized it but still it was that in conjunction with like just next level amounts of imposter syndrome beyond the typical what people have applying to grad school and you know even the most competitive applicants whatever because I just you know on paper didn't stand a chance but nonetheless I applied I applied to several schools and as I talked about my past episodes I also applied to a masters in neuroscience program and that was because one of my recommenders who's one of my professors who's an MDP HD question me and was like I've actually first of all he had never written a psychology letter before of recommendations he was like this is new and second of all like you took neuroscience with me and you loved it and you aced it you like why are you not considering that and I told him like I didn't think I stood a chance and like I couldn't probably couldn't do it and like all of my limiting beliefs and he said well he made a deal with me he was like I will write these letters for your psychology programs if you at least apply to one neuroscience program make it a master's you can do it here even like if you're more comfortable like just apply to one just give yourself that chance and I'm so so grateful that he said that because I honored that deal and I applied to the program at UT Dallas and it was helpful to apply to that one because it felt slightly more accessible maybe if it wasn't really like on paper they weren't gonna like accept me because I was from here but it just felt a little more familiar because I was already there it also felt like a good fallback plan if all else failed because I wouldn't have to like move my medical team yet and I just in retrospect I probably really wasn't ready to move at that point so I think it worked out quite well for many reasons but I so yeah I applied to clinical psychology programs and I applied to this one neuroscience program and long story short I had the opportunity to go to a couple of my extremely fallback like very safety last option psychology programs which even that I'm very surprised that that ended up being the case for me but I had that and I weighed that against the to me like kind of miracle that I got into the Masters program for neuroscience and at the time again I was like do I want to go to these programs solely to get a PhD right now and start one year like earlier than if I were to start like applying next year again and do I want like am I going to feel fully resonant with this decision and a huge aspect of thinking about that was like I don't get to represent myself in my fullest form and my capabilities purely on paper I also like you know have not actually graduated I have so much more to improve my GPA I don't fully have a concept on my story and my path and how to best represent myself and that's where I mean amongst many reasons the non-traditional aspect of my journey really came in like into considering if I wanted to take up these and I don't mean to sound ungrateful but like these offers that like I wasn't very enthused about in terms of I mean a program's a program especially nowadays where like it's all but impossible to get into anything it's like take what you can get but with the psychology programs at the time I just didn't feel fully good moving forward because I knew that my journey was not or take you know accurately portrayed I didn't know how to fix it or improve it but it just felt like such a roadblock and such an almost unfair funnel to or filter to see me through and it just wasn't affording me the opportunities that maybe I would have if I either had a more cohesive way of for lack of a better term like packaging my my past and also just more on paper evidence that I have and quote unquote redeem myself or I'm now worthy which again are stupid concepts but in admissions is just the reality that we're working with so that in combination with the fact that I just like got into this master's program that I never was gonna apply to you and that I didn't really think I could do my brain told me like and my heart told me like just do this just do the master's program and if nothing else you'll just be more informed about neuroscience then go do psychology in a more biologically informed and approach way it'll also probably help to improve your chances to get into a psychology program and that was just my mentality then because again I hadn't like fully opened up to the idea that I could do neuroscience and so I picked the master's program so now here we are I'm like a fish out of water I am starting this masters in neuroscience program at UTD again so at least I'm in the same environment ish although completely new buildings and people but anyway I'm there and that's August of 2021 and if you're listening to this this is now September of 2023 so that's like for temporary context so I start this program I'm like really confused on everything and simultaneously in just my first few weeks of classes like as completely confused and humbled by my lack of education awareness of neurobiology as I am I'm also just thoroughly engaged and madly in love with what I'm learning like specifically when I learned that like learning about learning and memories of things like the cellular molecular systems level basis is a thing like I was just I remember specifically learning that being like this is where I belong this is what I want to do for the rest of my life and learning about fear and memory and you know psychiatric disorders that come from a dysregulation of this and how this all works and all of that so I fall in love deeply and then I'm like what do I do with this and I you know I've talked about this previous episode so I'm not gonna get too much into it but you know I join a wet lab be very cellular molecular neurobiology lab which I've never done anything like this in my life at that point and I'm I also didn't have the classes to fully like understand what I was doing and yet I learned and it was just a very backwards way of learning in a very very non-traditional manner which the mentality and kind of psyche around all of that was hugely impactful to me both in a learning that I can be resourceful ish and that I could learn far faster and far more than I thought possible which was exciting and you know I'm grateful for that positive I suppose part of it equally and oppositely though it was just such a repetitive reality check of how perceivably behind and different I was compared to my peers compared to the people around me especially the undergraduates in my lab who are amazing and so so kind and thorough and capable and awesome but like the comparison of like these people who are not only younger than me but like academically younger than me who just know so much more who are who have so much more experience like people start doing research apparently like when they're 13 years old or in high school and there were some students who joined the lab like literally the summer after graduating high school like here I am like 25 26 27 like just came back from like pretty much failing out of college like fully new life like completely inexperienced have no idea what I'm doing which everyone kind of says they don't know what they're doing like even people to high-as-level but like I truly didn't even know what to know I was doing or what I didn't know and it was such a transformative experience and showed me a lot but like just inherently having that baggage that passed that identity that lack of linear structure just maybe feel like I had no idea how to fit my interests or my aspirations into the path that everybody followed because there is kind of a prescribed path for many of the degrees that you might be thinking of and for me in particular there is a prescribed path of what getting into for example a clinical psychology PhD program looks like there is a different but equally rigid prescribed path for what getting into a neuroscience PhD program looks like and I should also say before I move forward for anyone listening that's like why are you even thinking about a PhD like why do you just want to be in school longer you know that's a very valid question and I wouldn't have known how to answer that at the time because I didn't know what I was doing but the whole point and purpose of generally a PhD I mean for the most part especially in these fields isn't like to just be a student perpetually and to just keep learning because we don't want to work like that's that's sometimes like a misnomer and a confusion it's because like the point of the degree and the path like you call yourself a student and yes you are a student you're learning but you're doing work like you are a researcher and in psychology programs like you're being trained to be a therapist as well but I guess honing back specifically to the research side of things a program is like the point of the degree for the most part and the point of the program is to fully train someone to be a operational scientist and yes you can do science in a lab as an undergraduate even as a master's student like I did or even as a technician or a research scientist if you have the ability to get hired as such without a PhD you can the PhD is just a very formal and extremely rigorous way of from start to finish taking yourself through a project that you learn how to even run a project and how to execute a project and you're extremely mentored and at the same time you're also extremely independent and you grow into the independence and it's just a process to be able to become a scientist like fully and truly and of course it's not the end of one's training typically or the end of one's career unless they choose for it to be but it's just it's a very fundamental part like just like medical school and going through medical school to become a doctor like it's just a fundamental part of the process of becoming a researcher a scientist operationally who can understand and execute things on their own of course with Dilwitz and but for the most part on their own, with that caveat outside. There is a extremely rigid and prescribed path to do that. And I, as an entrepreneurial student, as someone who just kind of found myself there, from very, very different circumstances and a very different trajectory than anybody around me, I had no idea what I was doing, how I belonged. And then when I started formulating my future hopes and aspirations and dreams, which were very, very quiet, because I didn't feel like it was possible for me, and it felt so, it felt like I had so much gall to even think like, "Oh, in what world would I ever be able to do a PhD in this thing?" I'm already lucky, and just, it's already just a complete miracle that I'm here as a master student doing this, like how the hell do I think the next step will happen? But that's kind of how I feel before each next thing. Nonetheless, it's kind of true when that, like, I didn't know how I got there. I didn't know anybody else who got through the way I got there at all. And in thinking about next steps, like, I look around me, and again, another point to add to this for those who are not as familiar is like mentorship is pretty much everything. Mentorship and camaraderie and cohort vibes. Really my, it governs, like, a lot of these experiences and research in academia for graduate school or pursuing graduate school, because so much of your training and your recommendation letters and even just moving through the process of moving to the next step is informed by peers, informed by mentors. Like, you're down to the actual recommendation letters and the training that you're receiving and reflections. And it's a very communal process in that way. There's a lot of input and insight that comes from people who are slightly older in their academic trajectory than you. It's just a very, very, like, mentorship system. And so with that, like, with being around these people to, you know, compare trajectories with or to be supported, like, there's such a huge barrier and very real gap because I was someone who people didn't really know what to do with me. Like, how to tell me how to, like, package my story, how to context or contextualize my story, like, how to approach addressing the elephants in the room about my past and my grades and my lapses in school, like all the things that would be held against me typically and admission setting and also how to explain my general very non-linear, completely opposite to the prescribed trajectory and how to frame that in a way that qualifies me to be there, not disqualifies me and also just how to inform me on next steps and ways to improve my situation and my overall, like, I guess you can call it an application, but it's really like me as a person being presented to these possibilities. And then there was even the added and maybe more intimidating layer of being preliminarily evaluated by the people around me for if I had a chance because in this prescribed way of following a path by that very definition, there's a checklist of, you know, "Are we, do we think you're ready? Do we think there's a chance you're going to get in? What kind of chance? What kind of school should you apply to? What kind of program should you apply to? How competitive is your application?" There's a very clear cut way typically to compare that or compare someone to those general criteria. And then you have me that on many levels, it's just such a strange story and path to compare to that criteria. So like, I got answers all over the place from many trustworthy people of how I compared and what my odds were, frankly, of being able to pursue this and get into any program, let alone certain programs in certain ways, which ranged from, yeah, like, no, you're going to need a way of more experience, you need to catch up on all these things and basically, like, build up your path to look somewhat linear and catch up for years to get into, like, anything to, oh my gosh, like, no, you have so much extra experience, like, you are so passionate. There's a way to share your story. You have so much independent work because I was, we don't have to talk about this here, but you can listen to my past episodes of how kind of everything compounded and became exponentially involved for me and my masters and how I did so many projects and did so many presentations and it was, again, still very divergent from the typical path because people at my career stage simultaneously for me, while I was behind in certain ways. I was also extremely ahead in other ways with, like, doing independent things and presenting and advocating and stuff like that, which all led to my application. So there are certain people that were looking at me through, like, how different and behind I was. There were other people that were looking at me with how not only, not behind I was anymore, but also ahead in other ways. And so I didn't have a clear cut answer at all of what my odds were, which my peers typically had a very consistent response because they were more typical in the near and their path. And that was really confusing for me. I'm like, I truly don't know how to assess my hopes and dreams and, like, is this a pipe dream or is this way close to reality than they think? And spoiler alert, it was way closer because here I am in this program at this point. But I didn't know that and with myself talking how I feel about myself overall and when I'm working on, like, you know, I hate myself and I don't believe in myself most of the time. And I find the worst to look at and my pathology very much contributes to that and some excuse, it's just objectively like I'm describing how my self-talk fed into this clusterfuck of a confusion being an instructional student and not knowing where I fit in and if I had a chance. So I definitely, like, hearing that mixed bag, I, my self-talk lent itself to, well, some people are just being nice to me because they don't want to be mean and they care about me or they have rose colored glasses on because they know me far beyond what they'd see at an application. So that's why they're saying I have good chance, but the other people who don't think I have a good chance or being real with me, so that's kind of where my view lent itself and that was really sad. And yeah, a lot of that was irrespective of being a non-traditional student, but also some of it was compounded by that because of objectively feeling other and less than because we're just not very represented in our success stories, we're very not like uplifted. So I felt like a one and a million. So with all that being said, I was just so confused and like in my own world and it was warped and it felt just very destabilizing in certain ways. And I just didn't really have someone to walk me through my own set of circumstances and someone to lean on or even people to really look up to who had walked a similar path as me. And so I approached this next iteration of grad school applications, which was for a PhD in neuroscience, with just a whole lot of ignorance in a sense, not ignorance in really like the process or what was required, because that was easy enough to learn about. More so ignorance of what on earth my chances really were, and if I was presenting myself the quote-unquote right way, because like we talked about, I went through this in some form with the clinical psychology program in the past, and that was one pass at it, I suppose, but I was in a very different place in my life when I applied to those programs versus the neuroscience PhD programs, because I was applying in the fall of 2020 for psychology, and I was applying in the fall of 2022 for neuroscience. And that doesn't sound very far apart, but for me, and like the very exponential upward spiral, I suppose, from my very low points and just the very, very, very quick trajectory of my growth relative to the stagnancy I experienced for so long, just my life looked almost entirely different, barring like my relationship and where I lived, like beyond those two things, like just a completely different person, completely, or I'm not even a different person, I guess, just a far more actualized person, a far more productive person, a far more in the sense of evaluation, like quote-unquote accomplished person, and I think most importantly, I was just so much more in the zone of what I loved and what I was passionate about and what I felt purposeful to do. Like I really found, like, my calling, it felt like. So with that, I, like I said, I decided to apply to PhD programs with all of the caveats in my mind, like everyone in their dog on the internet, in person, be it peers, new admits, people who have been trying for years, faculty members, like the talk of the town across everyone in this space was, my god, it is almost impossible to get into any PhD program, let alone the quote-unquote, like esteemed ones, the higher ranked ones or whatever. It's like everyone was saying apply to like 30 schools and just be grateful if you can get into any single one of them and be okay with not getting in because the bar is so much higher than it has ever been due to. Again, I talked about this at length in the past episode but basically like COVID inflation of research requirements and just overall standards of the bar of applicants. So I'm already going into what I'm being told is the by far hardest thing to do for admissions or such a finite number of spots like around 10-ish spots per cohort, thousands of people per applicant cycle per school. Right? So that's very 1% chance-ish. So that's already objectively the odds that are stacked and then you take into account everything about me that is divergent from the most competitive traditional students and the way I navigated it 'cause I really didn't have another choice in the matter, I could have either just psyched myself out of it, just heard all that and been like, I can't do this or I'm nowhere near doing this and I need to go down a backlog of just doing everything everyone else had done but at an older age and then hope that maybe sometime in the distant future I might be considered her deemed worthy enough and I'm equitable to other people and I could have done that or just fucking try the cycle and I did just try the cycle because I, if nothing else, have lived enough life to know that you can't predict what'll happen and as much as I am so deeply, deeply affected and afraid of rejection, much like most people, but like to me, as much as there was the threat of rejection just reinforcing in a very illogical and unhealthy way all of the deep-seated fears I had about myself and my overall capability or worth, which in a perfect world one could decouple that but that's just where I was. In the risk of all that, I still knew that I would rather try than not because I have no idea what would happen and yeah, I might just be flat out rejected and then I would laugh at myself like who the hell did I think I was to even try but if I didn't try, I would just wonder if there, if you know, I even had a chance and so I did apply and here's how I approached applying. I should preface everything I'm gonna say by first saying that by default, I pretty much broke almost all of the rules of what you're supposed to do, quote unquote, one applying and I'll tell you with each example how I did that and I'll also say that I didn't really set out to break all the rules like oh my gosh, I just wanna be different and I'm gonna break the rules. It's just that with my lived experience, with being an traditional student and all of the reasons that I am one and my own wave looking at the world and existing, the only way I could do it in integrity for the most part was by doing it my way and as much as I was risking in my mind more and more rejection by doing things my own way, I also am out of place in my life where for the most part if I'm not accepted for who I am and how I am and what I wanna do, I am not going to bend myself into a version of myself to be palatable and accepted just to be miserable, trying to be someone and something I'm not. So I might as well, you know, and there's nuance to this but for the most part I might as well just share and be who would how I am and if I somehow land somewhere then maybe there's a chance that I can do this and it still may not work out, but at least I'm putting up those filters to start the process of being in a place where I'm aligned and in integrity. So that is my preface too, explaining how I navigated the cycle. So I knew going in that I had very specific interest and yes within those specific interest it was, I was very open to how I would answer said questions but you know for me and again I'm talking about like a research based PhD program but you could generalize this too. Your general fields of study and your interests and being intentional about why you are doing or pursuing what you're pursuing. So in the context of biomedical science PhD programs for me it was particularly neuroscience. Most people are explaining why they love research and yeah they'll talk about like certain subjects or certain techniques or certain types of neuroscience for example like different levels or whatnot but the general rule is to be broad enough. Specific enough that you can explain or get across that you know what you're talking about and you're immersing the field enough to have interest and explain your interest but broad enough that you could kind of fit anywhere or work with many people. For me I approached it differently. I and this is kind of evident from my story but I came in with a specific interest about certain conditions and systems and I just kind of over my time, my career whatever you want to call it, evolved my vantage point and by that I mean like I started with psychology and like more of the mind side of things and qualitative data and realized I wanted to get much more mechanistic, much more biological and picked a vantage point of not just neuroscience but for me at this point very systems cellular molecular neuroscience angles to my questions and so I shared myself as someone quite specifically interested in a few things and have they intersect with each other and the angle I am most interested in but I'm open to other angles to probe that question. Also with that because you're not just applying to what you are just applying to programs in these scenarios but the way typically one would approach applying to a program is by seeing if there are principal investigators or labs that are doing something that you want to do because it's not about just getting to a program it's about being good fit for eventually one of the labs because that's what's taking you on effectively during your PhD and funding it and that's where you do your PhD and your research because PhD is just a little bit of classes but the vast majority of it is doing your research project at least again for biomedical sciences. So all of that to say like I said before because of the competitiveness and how difficult it is to get into a program it's kind of like suggested to apply to a great number of programs to increase your likelihood and chances of getting in. Me, I applied to seven which I have not met someone who has applied to that little number of schools in this field because I like I said have very particular interests and there were only seven schools I could find that had a principal investigator if not two doing something close enough to what I wanted to where I could still come in and be under general umbrella or some sort of expertise and then expanded or branch off with my particular interests. So I already came in, do we think differently with being very clear about what I want to do and I don't, and I didn't mean to come off as someone close-minded or someone really stubborn, it wasn't that. I'm so invigorated and impassioned for my work because of my interest in the topic rather than just like being a neuroscientist such as I love neurosciences, obviously that's why I'm picking this vantage point but the question is what interests me and that's what would keep me going. So, and I should also mention that these questions are directly related to my own lived experience which kind of is a full circle picture for why I'm here and what I'm doing and how I got here. So I couldn't imagine doing it any other way which goes directly against the advice that anyone would ever give you of just like being open or at least portraying yourself as a very open person who could kind of do anything and like, you know, your PhD doesn't matter what you do in your PhD, you can do what you want later. Like, yes, I see the value in that sentiment and that like if you end up with a project that isn't your favorite thing, like, it's not the end of the world and above all, your mentor does matter and I'm kind of skipping ahead but just to make this point, that is true. And for me, because of being so close to death and not having functionality for so long, I am so acutely aware of how short life is and I want to make the most of my time now because I can't take life or granted and I don't know what will happen. And frankly, I don't feel like I have the privilege of or want to wait six years, eight years, 12 years or whatever to then start doing what I care about. Like, I'm here to of course get trained but also to make an impact now. However small it is. So for me and my value system, if I wasn't gonna be able to do something close enough to what lights me up about subject matter wise, implication wise and for me, that's specific psychiatric. conditions and psychedelic work if it all possible, but at least within the realm of psychiatric Neurobiology if I don't get to do that then I don't want I'm not going to dedicate like all this time to this like the training is So important, but it's not enough. So That's one angle in which I did things differently and I think that in a second-hand ways and formed by being an architectural student because I'm coming to this system and making this decision not like fresh out of Undergrad which not to knock that at all. That's the typical path, right? But for me I have lived so much life that I am a lot more set on and a lot and sometimes even a lot more actively motivated to do a certain thing and to pursue this path and I'm fully aware of what this entails because I've spent so much time exploring it and making it conscious choice to Enter into this field rather than kind of already being here and continuing on which again isn't worse. It's just different and there Obviously positives and negatives, but like I say in the previous episode The system typically looks at the when I say the system I mean the academic system people judging us basically. It's often highlighting and emphasizing the quote-unquote positives of the traditional path while Equally and absolutely looking at the negatives of the nautical path and I'm just here to also equal the playing fields and uplift the positives that include that are part of the nautical path for me at least and for many people I know so Yeah, I was very particular about What I wanted to do what I wanted to study which greatly narrowed down like greatly narrowed down the number of institutions I could look at and the number of principal investigators that I'd be willing to work with on top of that I already had a preliminary filter of it's not just the research like the research Box has to be checked, but I did a lot of investigation onto the people themselves principal investigators and the way they treat their trainees the general lab and work environment which you know a lot of nuance to that like a PhD She's a PhD and is absolutely just a full-time Difficult job and requires a lot of dedication and a lot of work and a lot of patience and I get that in a Obviously so willing to do that but within that to find the healthiest environment psychosocially environmentally one that is accessible and Allows for my needs to be met for the most part as someone with conditions I live with and non-traditional human for lack of a better term I I have been extremely vigilant about that because I need to prioritize my well-being through all of this Because I struggle enough on my own y'all so I are even narrowed down more like where I Apply based on kind of investigative Questions I asked people students and programs and then ultimately like Widdling down my list even further from my already small list so that ended up being seven schools and Not only were they seven schools, but for the most part they happened to be seven of the harder schools to get into which did not help me at all because It just happened to be that the research I was wanting to do was at very Highly regarded schools that were extremely extremely like harder than most schools to get into with the most some of the most applicants out of all programs and I really didn't set out to like apply to oh my gosh I'm gonna just go to like the best schools like I frankly don't give a fuck like I Just want to learn and I want to do what lights me up It just happened to be at those schools for the most part probably because they had the most resources and the most Like niche experts on certain topics and I have very niche interests and they had the most funding to be able to do novel things Which is my interests are very novel so That's kind of how my list full Or my list unfolded in kind of that framework. I just shared of like the layers to which my Experience was ambiguous to say the least in terms of evaluating my chances like Irrespective of my non-traditional path journey like pretend Replace me with someone who's just like the most typical path like super high grades lots of research experience never a break in school blah blah blah Given the assessments I got from the people around me for the most part even people who like fully believed in me and like we're encouraging me to do this I still was met with like that list of schools that number of schools this competitive cycle like It's very very low that like of a chance that this is gonna work out and Then you again you compound on all the things I just listed and so I Was already set setting myself up for like there's a point oh a 1% chance in my head But I'm gonna do this anyway. So I'm just gonna do it my way. So in a sense like the level of disbelief I had in this working out Kind of empowered me to Go even more so and lean even more so into my individuality in my own way of doing things because it was already like a very unlikely situation so might as well just Be myself and do things my way so I might have helped with my Audacity in that sense and who knows if that would have been different otherwise, but nonetheless I have this very limited list of schools very limited list of PIs principal investigators and then comes the applications and the reference letters and the cover letters and all of that right so For those of you who don't know long story short each schools different, but Applications are long and there are some commonalities and there's also some differences, but mostly the commonalities are A few essays with specific wordcows asking you specific questions though The reality is there is generally a formula for exactly how to answer those questions exactly how to write those statements what to say what not to say and kind of coded hidden things And rules that are not explicitly written Indirections so someone who's not surrounded by people who've already done it embedded in the system of academia with Multiple mentors who kind of know the inside scoop and people who know the inside scoop by default because they've done it like if you're not Around that passed out knowledge for the most part slash I guess the internet can kind of help but I think that in-person knowledge kind of really seeps in impermeat in a different way like If if there's this magic world where like you just had all the experience, but you weren't around anyone Which wouldn't make sense because you usually get the experience by being around people who do this You probably wouldn't get in because there's so many coded rules which does not compute in my brain as someone who just says it has it is and like just likes being transparent But that's a system and I had to sort of work with it, but within that and By the way, like I would if anyone wants to hear specifically about the neuroscience path and the very Specific essays and like things that were needing to be shared and the way I've navigated that let me know I can do a specific episode on that I'm just not sure if that's generalizable to the wide variety of interests for this audience So you tell me and I'll give it to you, but for now to make it more general Basically There's a whole lot of explaining your academic path and why you're here and what you want to do and what you've done so far and In the ways I broke those rules and what I did to address my non-traditional path there was I so like I was told by Pretty much everybody that don't list your conditions. Don't talk about mental illness and If I because I have to address why I was just magically gone from school for four years and why I had horrible grades and why they changed and why I'm older and why I was gone and blah blah blah like if I had to just sweep it under the rug of the fact that I had cancer Because I did have cancer But the problem was number one that wasn't true because I did have cancer, but that's not why I left That just hugely changed my life and was a huge Barrier I had to overcome and it still colors my life now and is very much part of my path and kept me out of school longer than maybe I would have but it also was kind of the catalyst for me to go back to school Which is detailed in my past episodes, but anyway, it's just not accurate because I didn't drop out with a 1.83 because of cancer I dropped out because of severe chronic debilitating autoimmune diseases and psychiatric illnesses and It was just striking a balance for me of like I was told not to share that stuff because if they see that I'm talking about this I'm probably going to be rejected because they don't want someone weak or Disabled or just all of the horrific stigmas and judgments that people make so I was in a sense told that oh like you're lucky to say cancer and people can't really judge you too hard for that Maybe a little bit but also like you can speak seen as empowering and you're better now and blah blah blah But like that just wasn't true. It was a part of my story But it wasn't true and did not explain the picture and so I broke the rules and I did what my mentors and people People all told me not to do and I did explain in not extreme amounts of detail because there is a word count and there's like you have to get a lot across in that word count about your actual Research and like what you've done so far to prepare yourself for grad school in the time in the space I had. I probably took up more space about my past and most people do, but it was warranted and I felt like it made a difference. Clearly I got in so it worked out, which is what I'll get to, but I did talk about it and I did openly identify as all the things I am and then in talking about myself as a person and the ways I've done outreach because there is part of that formula or whatever. Notice the sarcasm in my voice, but the formula of talking about outreach and mentorship and blah, blah, blah, like a lot, if not most of my work is related to serving people with lived experience as an advocate myself and mentoring other people like me. So basically embedded in those identities, embedded in those things I've done is implicit that I do have them. So I was very open about that as well and I knew the risk I was running because everybody, including obviously won't name names, but people who are the heads of programs who I knew were telling me that like, you know, your stories like amazing and I really respect you. I just don't know that other people will be as unbiased and will not stereotype you and basically was telling me like don't do it. Like you won't get it probably and I heard them. I respect them. I understand that's them trying to help me within the system and I didn't do it anyway and I knew what I was risking and I just could not be in a space where I couldn't talk about these things and I would be judged or excluded for it. So might as well start the filtering process now as much as I'm applying. I'm also, you know, considering where I belong to and where I want to go if I had at all a say if they were going to accept me or think about me at all, right? So that's another rule I broke. Also, there's a part of the applications at least for me where you had to submit a CB, a curriculum fatigue, which is like a really long version of a resume, but for academia like minus 12 pages long. It honestly could be longer but probably should be shorter, but that's where my ended. And in that, I made a very concerted effort to include amidst all of the, you know, my service and the awards I've won and blah, blah, blah, like I made a concerted effort to include things related to advocacy as well as presentations because I've done I've done keynotes, I've done panels, I've done virtual presentations, so extensively about advocacy, about my mental health, peer support, about my lived experience, about the intersection of my lived experience and my research. And so that's all work I've done, and I'm proud of. So I put it on my CV and that makes it really obvious like what I do and what I live with and what I've been through and it also, it could work either way. Could I either just to someone who does respect to that kind of thing and who understands that this is important, or maybe is love through something themselves in terms of the admissions committee, like that might be something that pushes them over the edge in my favor, but far more likely it's someone who doesn't get it who thinks that this is weird and that this is someone who comes to the way too much baggage and is way too much of a risk or does not have enough experience in other ways and or, you know, is way too open about lived experience and has no shame. All these narratives that could exist and they could reject me for it, but once again, I did what I did and it is what it is. And also I think something important to mention, which I won't get too much into, but I can definitely explain more of this on another episode because I've gotten a decent number of questions about it is part of my experience as a researcher is I mean, I have very traditional experience now working in a lab with a mentor doing the thing like, you know, doing experiments, gathering data, learning techniques for publication, all that fun stuff. I also though have a fuck ton of unexpected experience pursuing a completely independent research project, which I've talked about in the podcast before a little bit, but basically that led me to just a ton of talks and posters and awards and was really the shining beacon of, I mean, if I only had that, I probably wouldn't have gone into grad school, but I also think that if I only had my lab experience given where I was and being an entrepreneurial student and being quote unquote behind in sorts, like I probably would not have gotten in and this independent work that I did like far superseded what was expected of me and what typically people at my career stage do, and it garnered me a lot of not just, you know, like posters and citations and presentations and really, really cool things and awards, but it also garnered me a lot of one-on-one connection with mentors and people who kind of already started seeing me for what I was doing and were impressed by my independent motivation and the breadth and the depth of my work, which was such an honor and kind of also inspired me to apply, because I was like, I'm already doing things differently than everybody else, so I might as well continue and try applying to these programs, but nonetheless, that aspect of my research was something I absolutely highlighted in my application, like, you know, listing out things I did within labs at school and then culminating into this project, and in that I did talk about how it was informed by my lived experience and it's pretty obvious too, because these talks are online and if anyone wanted to Google me, like in five seconds, they would see all my lived experience, because that's another part of this too. I've in being a nautical student, like, I was public with my advocacy and my work in many, many ways before pursuing this path of being in a space where these things might be secret, so like, I never had the, I don't want to say luxury, because I actively would, I wouldn't have done anything differently, but I didn't have the opportunity to not disclose in a sense, because even if I didn't write it on my application, like, people Google you, and like, that's the fertain that comes up, and not only that, like, because of my specific research, like the independent project I did on Comorbid OCD and PTSD, given that I have that, the way I present my work, I actually have a whole timeline of my own lived experience, and how my diagnoses and my experience led me to my research question, and so, like, if anyone were to consume my research via a video online of which there are plenty, you would hear my very detailed lived experience, and it's not pretty, so for me, that's a very, I guess, unique identifier for my, the way I navigated this process. I do mention that though, because I know there are people here who are also open, and are, or want to be open, desire to be open, and they are advocates, and sometimes they switch their name, or, you know, hide parts of their name, or even go anonymous, because of their advocacy and their fear of being judged in academia, and that's so valid, and everybody should do what they feel comfortable with. I just want to highlight that for me, I am one example of someone who is actively open, and has been open, and can be outed at any point, because I assist out myself, and it has worked out for me thus far, and again, not without its challenges, but it has worked out and so I just want to highlight that for anyone who's worried about that, to know that it is possible to navigate. It's not easy, but it's definitely possible, and that should not exclude you from, or preclude you from even applying, because you've been told that that's already not okay, because it can't be okay. Let me also quickly talk about recletters, because that's something that comes up a lot, so recletters are really, really difficult for anybody, like, unless you're just a most confident person and have zero fear of people and authority, the hats off to you, lucky you. But for most people, in general, recletters are extremely awkward and difficult, and I know for me, it's like, I genuinely want to build connections with real people and professors and PIs and people who are in power, who would write said letters, are real people, and I really hate the transactional element of, like, feeling like your relationship might be construed as a means to an end to get a rec letter, and I just did everything I could in my power to avoid that, but just like not thinking about recletters with people, and just genuinely building real connections and enthusiasm, which for me was easy enough, because I'm already someone who, like, overshairs and just gets to the core of things, and, like, wants to know people as people and not just their research, and I also typically would only build a relationship with someone that I'm comfortable with, and really enthralled by the research and want to know more about them, so that's how I approached my relationships with my recommenders, which, for me, were my principal investigator, my PI of the neuroscience lab I joined, and then I either had the option of, "Well, let me back up." So for these programs, the kind of inherent rule of thumb is, like, get as many people to write you letters who you've worked in their labs and did research with, because they are considered the highest weight and are just more indicative of your potential success in a program than having, like, a professor who you took a class with, or some sort of informal mentor, or, you know, even a post-doctoral mentor you had, or just someone like that. So the rule is, like, get as many PI as possible, and then whatever you have remaining for your three or four letters, or whatever you need, like, then try to cover it with professors, but that's not preferred. For me, I had the option of either going with both my psychology PI and my neuroscience PI and then one professor or just my neuroscience PI and two neuroscience professors. And I there was no right or perfect answer but for me I picked my one neuroscience PI and then two neuroscience professors because I really wanted people to speak to the way I engaged in class and talking about my outside project which my professors who I got close with were very familiar with and it supported me with very much and encouraged me and helped me get grants and things like that. So I wanted them to speak to that and then so again I had my main mentor from from my lab and then I had two of my professors one of whom was the head of the neuroscience department which didn't hurt though honestly I did not know that when I built that relationship with him and I just thought he was amazing and taught this phenomenal class and just started like talking to him all the time and felt some sort of like a rapport and friendship with him and they just didn't realize I should have been way more scared of him than I was but it probably worked in my benefits I treated him like a real person and not just like oh my god you're so important and special and I need you to use you or I'm scared of you you know so that's that and then another professor who was really near and dear to me and taught about a subject that I was very very interested in so the way I approached those was I mean they were pretty already aware that like I was going to apply to programs they were really encouraging of me without really knowing the extent of my nontraditional background and I had to explain it to them because in order for the most part to get a good letter but you know once they agreed to say yes which is even sometimes a question because they could say no but when they said yes like typically what's expected of you which is not again these are these things you just learn from being around is they want or need they need your transcript and they need kind of like your CV or something to be able to speak to things they don't know about from you being their student to just write the most robust and supportive letter possible so for me by showing them my transcript they would see my very very strange past and my grades and you know like the gaps and also with my CV like they would see the same thing and so I felt the need to or what I chose to do was to talk to them and once they said yes and you know I was really appreciative I told them that there was kind of a good amount that I wanted them to know about my past and you know if they were still willing and comfortable to write the letter then that'd be amazing and from there I basically like wrote out and I have this folder still if anyone ever wants it it could be a good resource for you so just reach out to me if you do want it but I made a folder for each of them and I did the typical thing of like making some sort of a spreadsheet with all the schools within the track and like the due dates and whatever but then I made a lot of resources to explain my past in an accessible way so I what's typically told to people is to help them with letters to kind of like not write your own letter at all but like well some people do but that's a different conversation but to kind of write out the strengths that you'd like them to highlight obviously that's like a weird thing to do because it's like two to your own horn but it's strategic in that applications typically have lots of like traits and words they emphasize on their website that could usually indicate like the kinds of words they're looking for in letters and in applications and you have to remember like there's you selling yourself and then there's your letters which are supplemental and extremely important to talk about you as well that you not just talking about yourself so with that like they want that consistency being seen across like not just yourself report but and what's on paper but without their people say about you so in that kind of way of how people like give their list of strengths or what they want their letter writers to highlight you know they might or may not be so if they agree with you I use that kind of like into also make kind of just a timeline effectively in an explanation and as digestible voice possible with what my past was and you know I don't believe in toxic positivity I don't believe in finding the good and finding the light and the strengths and everything but for the purpose of an application and the reality of like things being held against you unless you find some sort of way to emphasize how it's a strength which is basically I mean people don't want to read your application just feel bad for you like they want to know if they're going to see things that are out of the norm like how this you know makes you a more qualified or better candidate and how this informs your strengths and for me that's just what I had to do so and I believe a lot of it does inform my strengths so I kind of made a list a timeline of my past and the reasons for those things how I've overcome them how they not just how I overcame them it's not just like I overcame them and now I'm here doing a normal thing it's like how those very things directly influenced the many reasons that my letter-writers want it's right a letter for me my dry my independence my curiosity my passion like all the things that they already saw and reflected in me it putting my what you would call weaknesses and my lapses in my past into context in a way that really lifted me up that was my strategy and it was very fucking uncomfortable and I'm not gonna lie like I procrastinated this so much like I'm pretty sure I sent these things to my writers at the way later than I should have like I got them to say yes in time but sending these documents was so uncomfortable but I did and they wrote my letters and thank goodness for them but I had a timeline I also had kind of a manifesto of what I want to do and why I want to do it which was similar it wasn't directly repetitious of the first thing I said but it also put into context in very clear terms like what I want to do why I want to do it and they could speak to therefore like how I was uniquely qualified to do what I want to do based on my past experiences and it was kind of funny like they were pretty surprised and they gave me some really positive reinforcement of reactions about my strength and they didn't know these parts about me and they were proud of me and I'm glad that it turned out that way and that in a sense they found out about a lot of that after the fact because who knows if that you know and I hate this but who knows if it would have impeded our relationships before they decided to write a letter like before they decided on what they thought of me and my capabilities and my worth and I hate that about the system but you know there's no right or wrong answer and ableism and stigma is very real and true and in values I could live in opposition to it all day every day but there's also like the reality to consider of where other people are and it's not just their hatred and what's wrong with them for being ableist or being judgmental I'm not saying they are I'm saying that that's a possibility with anyone right but it's it's also their ignorance and not knowing and so maybe this way was away for them to bridge their perceptions of other people who knows but all that's saying I made their lives easier by explaining everything and opening myself up to questions which they didn't have any but they could have and I just spelled it out for them and I explained everything and put it all in this neat squared type of box which you know it's not real life but works for a letter and so that's how I navigated rec letters from here at this point it's just like submitting the applications waiting an absolute torture for responses and all I can really say about this point is it was a very horrible month like applications due December 1st kind of hearing about interviews by January and waiting in that just purgatory was horrible because like I said I truly had absolutely no conception of what kind of chances I had and there's also like tons of websites and things that are where people are posting their interview offers and sometimes they're staggered sometimes they're on one day so it's like within my seven schools just counting down and eliminating as certain school sent out things and I didn't receive one and it was really painful and definitely having a good number of schools at the beginning basically reject without rejecting by sending out all their invites and me not getting one definitely reinforced in my head that I was absolutely delusional and there was no chance and everybody who it told me that this was not gonna work out was right and I was not worth it and blah blah blah and it sucked and I pretty much just accepted actually that I wasn't gonna get it and I just discounted the rest of the school's I was waiting for but then I started getting the interview offers and that was a real cluster fuck shocked to me a side note like previous episodes definitely talk those as I was on ketamine treatments that untie like for weeks of that month and so that kind of made things even more trippy to say the least um getting one interview offer like right after I was on ketamine and I looked at my phone and it was just very shocking but anyway so skip over to I do the interviews now the part of my whole path to place into this is like I told you I included my lived experience on paper very explicitly in my applications in my CV in my rec letters like it was very open and obvious and somehow still got the interviews so at that point I was like I'm not changing anything about this typically in interviews like they the people interviewing you have looked at your application or are looking at your application while they're talking. you and it's already out there so I'm not going to hide it. I'm also not just going to like just start talking about it on my own like it's going to be in context right. It's not like oh qualified by the way I have to tell you I'm an entrepreneurial student like no I don't need to bring that up. It's more so like when being asked like about my path and how I got here and why I'm here and what I want to do and what my experiences and blah blah blah or even being directly asked about this lapse in my application like one of my interviews I saw like the paper in front of me like he had my CV and he had like circled the my undergrad and like the space between the first time and the second time with a question mark and so I mean it was actually written in my applications I don't know why you did that but maybe you did that before he read the rest of my application. Anyway like I my point is I approached it no differently than I did with the rest of my application. I was completely honest and in pretty much every single interview conversation that came up and particularly for me it came up because I talked at length about my independent project because that's something that really differentiated me from other applicants and people had questions about it and we're really excited to hear about it and so I was often asked the question how I came up with that why I pursued it blah blah and the answer is because I live with those conditions and so then I started thinking about it in the context of my research question and put my research or hat on and started exploring it and you know blah blah blah so for my unique circumstances plus just my general ethos it came up in all my interviews and it could have been the worst thing ever like being met with someone who was uniquely biased against what I had to say or judgmental like one interview amongst the whole interview season could have you know within like one school could have sank the entire ship for me and that's something I was conscious of although I again didn't really feel like I had a choice and also just didn't want to hide it it's too exhausting for me and I just as much as I'm so deeply afraid of rejection and probably take it a way more personally than I should I still my values told me that I need to be my full self and if I'm not accepted then I don't belong here so that's what I did and then I got it and I decided to join the University of Matt oh my gosh I can't talk the University of Wisconsin Madison's neuroscience training program and I of those seven schools I'm here and felt it felt like completely impossible and I still like around a month and cannot believe I'm here and can and it still feels like I'm waiting for the other shoot to drop because that's just how my brain is but I'm here and all of that to say it is possible and I know you could hear this entire story and you could think that this is just uma like this is just her story like this is so specific and unique to her that like this couldn't happen for me but the reasons I share the details were to illustrate how it played out but as usual the details the devil is not in the details in this case the devil is in not the devil the angel the angel is in the generalized understanding of how I navigated it and the way I made my choices and you could really apply that to any field and just understanding what your values are and most importantly the details were shared because it truly paints a story of what is possible because that's the point of this episode for you to know that it is possible because I didn't know it was possible I know many people don't know it's possible I know that my last episode came out and was met with so much love and regard and appreciation from people who listen to this show that I didn't even know listen to this show because they don't get to hear about this and they're also people who want to go back to school but feel such a passer syndrome and feel like they don't belong and they're not allowed and blah blah blah and there's root there's no rule against you being able to do it it's just not represented and uplifted because it's not the typical life path and so I'm here to dispel that and to raise awareness for it and I'm so passionate about it because I just cannot imagine the amount of passion and potential that can be unlocked within people who should be doing things that they are driven to do and taking up space the way that they want to take up space and that they deserve to do so and the only thing holding them back is feared that they don't belong and that they can't do it because they're different how this label or this title or these experiences and fuck that fuck that I can do it you can do it I hate that when I typically hear it from people like if I can do it you can do it because it's like I'm not you how do you know I can do it but again I'm not talking about the details I'm talking about just navigating systems that are not made for you and being in your own worth and being in your own integrity and your own values and paving your own path and you know what I'll address the elephant in the room what if I didn't get into a program would I be making this episode well I probably wouldn't be making this episode and like look how this is possible because I did it but just because I did if I hadn't gotten into a program which was very likely given all the reasons I said before had I not gotten into a program that would not mean that it's not possible for me it would just mean that those circumstances and those places were not the places I were meant to be and I would find my way because that is life we find our way before our own paths I know I do because every fucking thing I've done has been something that I have not had someone to look forward to or to look up to and I would have figured it out or done something else and been that's where I would have belonged so the point isn't that the success is in the getting in it's the the success to me is the trying and the choosing of your own path rather than avoiding trying and evolving and growing and being and doing because of the societal norms that are placed upon us limiting us to even consider what's possible for us it's just to me it's the moving forward and the evolving and the doing the fact that I did it is a success and again maybe the answer in this episode would be different had I not gotten in it would just be talking about how I am forging my own path but for me it worked out to get to the goal I wanted and who knows that will turn out but I just want you to know that you are worthy of taking up space and trying and much more as possible than you think it is so with that I hope that this episode gave you so many nuggets of inspiration and empowerment for your own journey and a just hope that you can take up space and that your lived experience is valid and that yourself talk maybe not always right and your intuitions about what resonates with you and what you want to do and how you want to be and the spaces you want to take up however you want to take them up is valid and you are worthy and capable of it I never would have believed on my own but I want you to know that I see you and I hear you and I am so proud of you and you can do it I swear so thank you for joining me for this episode for tuning in and for sharing space with me as I shared my own experience and more importantly just allowing yourself to feel the empowerment and the hope that you so deserve to feel because I know it's lacking in this world and if nothing else I'm here to just remind you of your power and value and worth whatever that looks like for you in your life so thank you for sharing space with me thank you for tuning in every week and as always if you love this episode if you love this show then it would mean the absolute world to me if you could just take five seconds right now to hit subscribe wherever you're listening to the 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