Pōsōh,
Over Spring break, I had the opportunity to attend The McNair Research Conference at the University of Maryland. The conference was a celebration of networking, graduate school, and undergraduate research. I was able to meet other high achieving students working towards their dreams of Ph.Ds and answering their own life's questions. I had the privilege of reading the works of fellow Indigenous students who were themselves incorporating their identities into their fields. Most importantly though, I was able to have long conversations with my fellow McNair scholars from Eau Claire, I connected with professionals in the field I want to be in, and I made friends from around the country.
Community
As a student at a small University, it is uncommon to find friends excited to explore the opportunities that await beyond undergraduate school. However, my colleagues in the McNair program are passionately driving forward to their perspective graduate programs. We are all studying in vastly different fields, researching substantially different topics, but we share the goal of going to graduate school. At the conference we spoke about our goals, our dream jobs, our safety schools, and our dream schools. We talked about how isolating it can feel to be working towards graduate school. The conference gave us the opportunity to speak about our fears and uncertainties, but it also allowed us to see that we are all in it together. Following the conference, I have had weekly study meet ups with the other scholars where we research grad schools, send out important emails to potential advisors, and do everything we can to prepare ourselves for graduate school applications. The conference allowed us to realize we are not just classmates, but we are a community, and we have a network of people supporting us to and through graduate school.
Graduate School Fair
At the conference, there was a small window of time where I was able to meet different admissions groups from graduate schools around the country. At each table, I was asked about my goals for graduate school. I talked about my plans to earn a Ph.D. in mathematics with an emphasis in indigenous studies, but more than half of the schools turned me away. Halfway through the tables, I was feeling extremely discouraged, a program for ethno-mathematics does not exist in its specificity anywhere. However, I decided to continue searching, because I needed to at least know what each school had to offer in terms of mathematics. Finally, I arrived at a table with a counselor thrilled about my research. He told me that at Princeton, the value of interdisciplinary studies is held in high regard, and that a research project like mine would be an asset to their school. Although, I cannot say with certainty that I want to go to Princeton, it has been added to my official list of potential programs alongside the University of Minnesota, University of Hawaii at Manoa, and the University of Nebraska Lincoln.
Major Take Aways
Following the conference, I have had three major mindset changes that have exponentially increased my level of productivity and confidence. My first take away is that I really love to learn. Before the conference, I had fallen into patterns of getting work done to complete it, instead of taking the time to fully learn it, and learn beyond it. The mindset changes of loving to learn versus a dreading a task has improved my motivation and interest for my classes. My second take away from the conference, is that everyone needs people to help them along the way. Every speaker, every person I spoke to, and everyone I overheard, spoke about the people in their lives that helped them get to where they are today. I often feel like learning must be an individual task, but through the conference it was made clear that no one can achieve greatness entirely on their own. It's the people who come before us, the people who are with us along the way, and the people who support us when we get there, that make our greatest accomplishments so remarkable.
Wāewāenan
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