I was offered the opportunity to be interviewed by a journalist from U.S. News & World Report about the topic What You Can Do With a Biology Degree. She was OK with the idea that I worked primarily with PhD graduate students, not undergrads, whose fields were not only biology but a variety of biomedical programs. Although the journalist and I weren’t able to schedule a phone interview, she let me provide some ideas and talking points through email for her article. When I first started reading her piece, imposter syndrome hit me, but then I let it go. I realized I did a pretty good job of sharing the mission of the URBEST program, after four years of practice. 

Data science had not been on my radar until about two years ago, when a program director at Insight Data Science Insight visited UR. During the seminar, I immediately realized it could be a great fit for me. At that time, I had already started doing an online master degree in computer science while pursuing my PhD in Biology. I knew that an industrial job would be a better fit for me, yet I was not entirely convinced that I wanted to be a programmer. After the seminar, I did more research and found that data science is a fast-growing, in-demand field that has attracted a lot of people from academia. I decided that I was going to apply to this program once I was in the final stage of my PhD.

Dealing with failure and an unfunded grant application is a horrible feeling.  A private hurt that’s immeasurably hard to share with colleagues, family and friends. That’s because the narrative is one of failure. But, I’ve chosen to write about it anyway – because we’ve all been here.  Because shame thrives in secrecy and loses its power when we talk about it. It’s also true that a life in science requires resilience -- the ability to pick oneself up after a fall and to learn and improve from failure.  No one ever said that it would be easy.

Many graduate students have varied overlapping academic goals and interests, or a hazy-at-best sense of their options when it comes to navigating from their current study into future projects or career choices. Some also need more help than others in finding the time or resources to explore opportunities in their fields that don’t already dovetail neatly with their established career trajectories or fit within their considerable academic constraints. As an MD/PhD student, for example, my career path is, for the most part, laid out in front of me: when I finish my PhD, I will return to medical school for two years, and then apply for residency, not getting back into the lab for at least four years -- at this pace, an internship is never going to happen. But URBEST is dedicated to helping students explore all their options beyond their current coursework via regular workshops and seminars, and by helping students find and finance unique learning experiences they may not otherwise have considered pursuing. The following is my story that I offer to encourage the University of Rochester’s graduate students to consider connecting with URBEST and to pursue additional academic interests and skill-sets, even when an internship is not a viable option.

No one likes to spend their day feeling like they don’t belong. While this may seem strange, it’s actually surprisingly common and is referred to as “imposter syndrome”. Harvard Business Review defined imposter syndrome as “a collection of feelings of inadequacy that persist despite evident success.” I personally started experiencing this early in my grad school career. I felt as if I didn’t deserve to be there and that I was a fraud. These feelings seem to be particularly common among scientists, and I wanted to write a short blog post about how I deal with it in case it may help others.

Graduate school is not just an opportunity for academic pursuits but also an opportunity to empower your voice through podcasting! Podcasting allows you to share your passion and fill in a deficient niche. We are two fifth-year toxicology graduate students who have appreciated the opportunities provided by URBEST to promote all avenues of employment a PhD could pursue. This seed of inspiration encouraged us to expand this style of opportunity by making a live podcast, titled “Interview with an Expert” for interested graduate students.

One of the ways to determine what skills would be beneficial to future employers is to simply look at job postings and see which skills you have or don’t have. I noticed a recurring theme in the job descriptions: GMP experience was commonly a preferred or required qualification. If you’re thinking ‘what on earth is GMP?’ you’re not alone. A quick internet search gave me my answer: Good Manufacturing Practice (hence GMP) is essentially the standard for manufacturing and testing a product, such as a pharmaceutical drug, so that it is safe for human use. GMP was something that I had no experience with, so I decided to do something about it.

In 2016, I was a post-doc and I was far from imagining that my own URBEST internship at the Upstate Stem Cell cGMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) Facility (USCGF) would be my passport into USCGF management, business development and mentoring of students at my fingertips. The USCGF is located in the basement of the MRBX building, a truly hidden Oasis! We work as a team for the manufacturing of cell-based therapies for clinical trials. Our culture is industrial in its nature. As part of the production of materials to be tested for the first time in human clinical trials, we assure product safety, purity and potency by the documentation of process and procedures, qualification of equipment and analytical methods. The fact that the GMP facility is in the University is a plus because students can tour it and have a glimpse of what is happening in a Biotech company manufacturing setting.

As an undergraduate, I loved biology and, like many young students, was motivated “to make a difference”.  Throughout my education, I realized my curiosity and passion for critical thinking was best fulfilled by laboratory research, while my personal experiences fueled pursuit of translational research, especially cancer research.  I feel very fortunate to be able to pursue my professional goals, and to say I love my job 20 years later.  I remain hopeful that my contributions to a dedicated team will translate to effective therapies in the coming years.