Thread by @NKWhiteman

To all those prospective graduate students rejected from their dream programs, or every program, this story is for you:

I know a first generation college student who is bright, hard working and in love with nature.

They did a senior thesis on evolutionary ecology and got As in their biology courses and won an award for their thesis at a state science meeting for undergrads.

A math phobia prevented them from excelling in those courses and on the quantitative section of the GRE.

So despite a clear gift for biology, they were rejected from every university PhD program to which they applied as a senior. The math thing was just a red flag.

They were rejected from UC—Berkeley, University of Kansas, University of Illinois, University of Wisconsin, Cornell University and others.

Then, they got accepted to University of Missouri-Columbia for a M.S. in entomology where they thrived, got over their math phobia and got As in statistics courses, thanks to a caring advisor who saw the potential of this student.

The GRE thing still held them back but they really couldn’t afford to keep taking it as they applied to PhD programs, so they got into more places while applying to PhD programs, but there were still not a lot of options.

Then, against the advice of their mentor, they just accepted the offer of first place that accepted them and gave them a fellowship. They were anxious and appreciated being believed in, it is clear.

This place they ended up for their PhD was University of Missouri-St. Louis and that student was me.

UMSL was a fantastic place for me. The best program in tropical biology owning to a special focus on that across its faculty like Bette Loiselle, Bob Ricklefs, Peter Stevens, Toby Kellogg, and, my eventual advisor Patty Parker.

My first year was rough. I left my advisor’s lab just as I came out of the closet, and switched from studying social insects to lice on birds in Galapagos after my new advisor invited me to join her lab in Galapagos.

I thrived at UMSL eventually. It was the perfect place for me.

Then, I needed to be in Boston for personal reasons for a postdoc. I wanted to be at Harvard but every fellowship I applied to failed. Finally, my postdoc mentor Naomi Pierce said, come anyway, it will work out!

I had applied for an NIH NRSA (F32) fellowship to work with her and Fred Ausubel on a new host-parasite system for me invoking Arabidopsis, bacteria and insects.

It was rejected.

I arrived at Harvard and worked as Head Teaching Fellow for Naomi’s class to pay the bills. All the while, surrounded by those with fancy postdoc fellowships.

I was about to quit after 5 months. Then, at the 11th hour, my second NRSA application was funded for 3 years. I was elated.

Thanks to Naomi and Fred, I started studying Scaptomyza this drosophilid that attacks Arabidopsis after we decided our insect in this three-way pathosystem should be one that we could study genetically as well as the plant and the bacteria.

I came to love Harvard and felt I belonged there.

But it was hard. I remember walking across Harvard Yard wishing my grandparents were alive to know that I was a researcher there.

I remember thinking, earlier (as an undergrad and then M.S. student after I was rejected by so many graduate schools) that I should just quit.

Maybe I should have, but I’m glad I didn’t.

As a faculty member at UC-Berkeley, a place I was not accepted as a graduate student, I can say to all of those who feel as I did: keep moving forward. Persist. Trust your gut. You will make mistakes. Strategic ones. Find allies. Stick with them.

Believe in yourself. It’s hard to sometimes. Phobias are real. Confront them when you are ready. But do confront them. You can find a place where you will thrive. You do belong here. Thanks for letting me share my story.

I have to say, helping my 12 year old nephew do cross products last week just about made me cry. He’s getting an A in math right now!

And there is no getting around it. I was completely devastated about the rejections. My mother and friends in college were the ones to remind me that I was more than the sum of them. And then, Bob Sites, my wonderful M.S. mentor, took me under his wing.

And the late Professor Gary Krause, Dept of Statistics at Mizzou is the one who locked eyes with me and said “you are going to learn to love statistics as much as I do.” Lol! He was so right. It was like a bridge to a new world.

And the person who got me through #stoichiometry and believed in my potential as a scientist is my friend @petemathison from Fargo, a wonderful human being.

Not easy to share this stuff! We are trained to project perfection. This is not cool. We are all human.

"here" means wherever you are able to be fulfilled NOT necessarily in academia!

I say *should have* because sometimes it is healthier and better to leave a particular path. There is no shame in this. And the glad part is simply with the benefit of hindsight.