To increase diversity in STEM, a foot in the door isn’t enough. We need better support

From ScienceMag:

The question caught me off-guard. The video call was supposed to be a simple wrap-up with a program evaluator—one last meeting to close my year in the postbaccalaureate program. I thought it would just be a chance to say thank you, talk about next steps, and get a bit of advice. Instead, I was asked a critical question: “How has this program shaped your sense of belonging in STEM, and in neuroscience specifically?” I stared at the screen for a moment, blinking. I wanted to be honest, but I didn’t want to sound ungrateful. I knew how much the program had invested in my classmates and me. I also couldn’t ignore the weight of what I had experienced.

The program’s mission was to provide training to students from underrepresented backgrounds who had graduated from universities without many research opportunities. Coming from a small liberal arts college, I went into the program to gain the hands-on research experience I would need to be a competitive Ph.D. applicant.

It sounded like the gateway I was after. I wasn’t exactly sure what I needed to learn to become a competent researcher. But, I reasoned, surely the program would know.

It didn’t take long for those hopes to unravel. I soon learned that my cohort was the first. We were told we would be the “guinea pigs,” and that there would be growing pains.

We had weekly group meetings with the program directors, mostly focused on research updates and goals. But no one seemed to grasp how new we were to all of this. We didn’t just need feedback on our experiments. We needed someone to tell us what academia even was. How to navigate it. What questions to ask. We were hungry to learn, but the gaps were wide, and the silence around them made everything harder.

It’s hard to say why those involved didn’t understand what we needed. But it was clear that very few people on the medical campus where we were working looked like us. One day, as I was working on my laptop at a small coffee shop on campus, a woman in scrubs asked, “Do you have to be an employee, or can anyone just sit here?” My heart sank. I wasn’t bothering anyone. I belonged. And yet, somehow, others didn’t see it that way.

Meanwhile, I was struggling to get my experiments off the ground. Three months into the program, my mentor was put on administrative leave. I was unofficially placed under my mentor’s supervisor, someone senior in the department. He was genuinely invested in the program. But he wasn’t closely involved in my day to day. Without a direct mentor, I was left trying to piece things together on my own.

For months, I made almost no progress. When I asked questions of others in my lab, many of whom were stressed about their own future, they told me to “just look in the literature” and offered no further guidance. Once, a colleague said, almost casually, “Some people just aren’t cut out for this.”

Through my struggles, the program never checked in on me. It was a professor teaching one of my classes who ultimately filled that gap. After noticing I was obviously very unhappy, she invited me to switch to her lab.

I went on to work with her for the rest of the year. She gave me what I was missing: technical skills, insight into the unspoken norms of academia, and the red flags to watch out for. She helped me rebuild my confidence and gave me tools, language, and a way forward. “You’re a star,” she said once, so casually it felt like a fact.

In the end, I came out of the experience achieving what I set out to do. I applied to and was accepted into the graduate school of my choice. But it wasn’t because I was guided or nurtured by the program. I decided to be honest and tell the program evaluator the truth. The program showed me I was capable of doing neuroscience research, but it didn’t give me a feeling that I belonged.

Now as a first year Ph.D. student, I find myself fielding questions from students considering similar programs. I tell them to ask about the kind of support they’ll receive in and outside of the lab and what programs mean when they say “mentorship.” Who will be responsible for guiding you? What are their roles, and what are your options if things go off track? Talent and grit matter, but so do structure, transparency, and care.

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