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I think all along I’ve felt like an imposter. I started my undergraduate education at the University of Calgary after taking a year off after high school. I had been completely overwhelmed by everything related to preparing for university. I didn’t know what courses to take, how to look up course descriptions, what it meant for a course to have a lab and tutorial component, and how to organize classes if it did. In this new situation with all these subjects I knew nothing about, I did not know what I would end up being the most interested in, and I definitely did not want there to be something I would potentially love, but miss out on. I decided that I would take some courses I knew nothing about, some that I liked from high school, and some that I thought were classics to be taken in university.
It turned out that I felt most comfortable and most interested in courses related to biology or human evolutionary sciences. After taking Primatology, Archaeology, and some intro courses in psychology and sociology, I found my passion in botany. I thought it was the perfect biological science. No animal care paperwork required, the study organisms do not wander away, little mess with dissection, and an amazing amount of biological diversity. Potential study topics ranged from population biology, community ecology, genomics, anatomy, physiology and pharmacology. Again, many things that I could find myself enamored with I might not even know about. I decided to pursue a BSc in Botany.
Sometime in my third year, I wrote a paper on seed dispersal in flowing plants. I was fascinated. Although I felt I was certain I would never graduate (a certainty not actually grounded in anything factual, but merely a product of feeling like an imposter), I started thinking about the possibility that I might like to do more research on seed dispersal, maybe even graduate research. I thought it would be great to combine conservation dispersal, and work in a tropical place. After years in Calgary, I was ready for a warm climate. I started looking on the internet for possible grad school opportunities in Florida, Hawaii and Arizona (for desert research).
Field classes were a huge bonus of being at the University of Calgary. I took a Botany class and an Ecology class in the summer that had field components in the Rockies. In the summer of my fourth year, I had to decide between taking a job in Calgary as a research assistant in a community ecology lab, or going to Vancouver Island to take a series of field classes that would complete my degree. It was a hard choice, because I wanted to have a letter of recommendation that would help me get into grad school, but I also really wanted to take some more field classes and finally finish my degree without having to finish in Calgary after another fall semester. I chose field classes. The lineup was Phycology (study of seaweed), Rainforest Ecology, and Juvenile Salmon.
Contrary to my expectation, I loved Phycology and hated Rainforest Ecology. I could not handle the bugs. During those three weeks I abandoned any thoughts of tropical research. On the other hand, Phycology was amazing. There were organisms I had never seen or even heard of before. Who knew they would become a major focus of my life. With that summer I finished my degree. I stayed on the coast, and became a research assistant for the professor who taught Phycology. My thoughts on grad school were still on dispersal, but now included seaweed and genetics. One day he received an email from a researcher in Chicago doing nearly exactly what I was interested in. I deeply trusted the person I was working for, and it was he who told me what a great research institution the University of Chicago was. I wrote her an email right away. Then I re-read the email about 100 times over a period of 2 weeks before I worked up the nerve to actually send it. She wrote back. I couldn’t believe it. I put together a package of my unofficial transcripts, a letter of interest, and my GRE scores and mailed it to her. She responded saying that she was interested, but that I would likely have to improve my GRE if I was to get into the University of Chicago. I was not happy. Two days later I decided that I would break the GRE if I had to, but that I would get in.
I rewrote the GRE, applied to the University of Chicago, and waited. In the meantime, I also applied to Simon Fraser University to do work on the ecology and genetics of Collinsia, and the University of Hawaii to work on the population genetics of red seaweed. I was not as excited about these other two, and thinking now, maybe I should have had a better or wider back-up plan. In the end, it didn’t matter. I was invited for an interview at the University of Chicago and met my advisor-to-be and many of the grad students. The grad students were motivated, interesting, extremely social, and happy to be there. People were open to my questions, and I felt they answered honestly. My advisor and I talked for an hour when I first got there, and it flew by. She made me so excited to do research. I wanted the offer of admission badly. After the interview I waited a grueling 2-3 weeks, but finally got it. I started grad school that September.
My advice is to be open to anything. If you can, visit the places you think you are interested in. Ask as many questions as possible. Ask about things that are difficult to talk about, like stipends, money to travel, research money, if people have ever quit the lab, how often do people in the lab publish, what kinds of jobs do people get after they leave that particular lab, on average how long does it take people to finish. Get experience in your particular research area. It might lead you to other things, it might turn you off. It’s good to know. Lastly, professors like to help people who think they are motivated or interested in doing research. Ask them about schools they think are good, or not good. Ask them for help in setting you up with research experience. Use as many resources as you can to find a suitable research program. It will be your life for several years.
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