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Thank you to @WeAreNDProfiles for this article 
. It’s true that ten years ago I primarily was a secretary, babysitter, and occasional pet-sitter for the South Bend elite
who wanted to be a researcher but had no idea how to begin. https://twitter.com/ndalumni/status/1343547902329835520
. It’s true that ten years ago I primarily was a secretary, babysitter, and occasional pet-sitter for the South Bend elitewho wanted to be a researcher but had no idea how to begin. https://twitter.com/ndalumni/status/1343547902329835520
The most important thing for me that helped my path, hands down, was mentorship, and having a professor see me as a person vs. a statistic.
I was the only African American student who graduated in Chemical Engineering my year, and *ooof* was that a hard road. Every failure or success in my courses seemed to not just be personal, but representative of my race and gender.
I remember one particular exam where I did poorly, and went to office hours (as was recommended for all students) to help understand my mistakes. The professor took the opportunity to tell me I should exit the major because African Americans don’t statistically do well. 
Engineering programs all over the country (sometimes unintentionally) propagate these kinds of bias, whether about gender, race, ethnicity, etc. I know now that what happened to me wasn’t personal, but part of systemic bias in higher ed. But at the time, it sure did crush me.
My undergraduate research mentor was a beacon in an often confusing and difficult road. And what he did was very simple: he saw me and treated me as a person. As a budding scientist. Not as a token, statistic, or stereotype.
If I had a success it was something to celebrate. If I had a failure, it was an opportunity to learn from. So simple, but so hard to find. In the ten years since, I’ve fully realized how rare and important that early mentorship was for me. Without it I’d surely have exited STEM,
and felt like I couldn’t possibly belong in it. But because of my mentor, I learned that science is a journey; that academia is not objective; that the most important things are curiosity, work-ethic, sense of ethics, and openness to go where the wind (or the science) takes you.
In this time where academia is buzzing, hand-wringing, and strategic-planning about how to be more inclusive and antiracist, I offer my story as one data point, and one takeaway: treat underrepresented students as if we are simply *people*. Because we are.
