03-06-2024
Graduate School Success Strategies: Lessons in Femtoring
Embarking on the journey of graduate school can be a transformative experience, especially for first-generation students of color. In a recent episode of Victors in Grad School, Dr. Christopher Lewis engages with Dr. Miroslava Chavez-Garcia and Dr. Yvette Martinez-Vu, coauthors of "Is Grad School For Me," to delve into their personal narratives and invaluable advice for students considering graduate school. Their shared wisdom offers valuable insights into decision-making, overcoming imposter syndrome, the importance of community, and advocating for underrepresented students in academia. Motivations for Pursuing Graduate School: Dr. Chavez-Garcia and Dr. Martinez-Vu unpack their motivations for pursuing graduate education, shedding light on the unique paths that led them to academia. As first-generation students of color, their journeys were marked by a sense of duty and passion for uncovering untold histories. Despite facing challenges and traumatic events, such as surviving a life-threatening accident, their resilience and determination propelled them towards graduate school. Navigating the Transition to Graduate School: The transition from undergraduate to graduate school is a pivotal moment in a student's academic career. Dr. Martinez-Vu's experience of becoming a mother during her time in graduate school underscores the intersection of personal and academic challenges that students may face. Dr. Chavez-Garcia's decision to pursue a PhD in 19th-century Mexican American history reflects the influence of mentors and the pursuit of academic passion. Imposter Syndrome and Strategies for Empowerment: Imposter syndrome, a common hurdle in academia, is discussed with insightful strategies for overcoming it. Dr. Martinez-Vu and Dr. Chavez-Garcia emphasize the importance of self-affirmation, building supportive communities, and embracing compassion as tools to combat feelings of inadequacy. Their emphasis on empowerment through femtorship, a holistic mentoring approach rooted in intersectional feminism, highlights the transformative power of supportive networks. Advocacy for Underrepresented Students: The hosts delve into the historical context of affirmative action and its impact on underrepresented students in academia. Dr. Chavez-Garcia advocates for alternative programs, such as McNair and Mellon May's initiatives, to provide tailored support for marginalized communities. Dr. Martinez-Vu underscores the need for intentional preparation and the creation of inclusive spaces for students of color in graduate education. Making Informed Decisions: Choosing the right graduate school offer is a pivotal decision that requires thoughtful consideration. Dr. Martinez-Vu's advice on identifying nonnegotiables, evaluating funding offers, and engaging with graduate students and professors offers a practical roadmap for decision-making. Dr. Chavez-Garcia highlights the importance of considering the institution's culture and community support in the decision-making process. In navigating the complexities of graduate school, the voices of Dr. Chavez-Garcia and Dr. Martinez-Vu serve as beacons of guidance and inspiration. Their commitment to empowering underrepresented students, creating inclusive spaces, and sharing their personal narratives exemplifies the transformative potential of academia. As first-generation students of color, their stories illuminate the power of resilience, community, and advocacy in shaping a path towards success in graduate education. TRANSCRIPT Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:01]: Welcome to the victors in grad school, where we have conversations with students, alumni, and experts about what it takes to find success in graduate school. Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:11]: Welcome back to Victors in Grad School. I'm your host, doctor Christopher Lewis, director of graduate programs at University of Michigan, Flint. Really excited to have you back again this week. As always, every week, I love being able to sit down, talk to you, work with you as you are going through this journey that you're on. And I say journey because it is a journey. Grad school is not a point in time. It is a process. It is a journey. Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:37]: And no matter if you are at the beginning of that journey and you're just starting to have that inkling in your mind that you may want to jump down this pathway toward getting a graduate degree in some area, or if you're in grad school and you're working through the challenges and working through all of the fun aspects of going through graduate school or if that light is coming up at the end of the tunnel and you're seeing that and you're figuring out, okay, what's next? And what do I need to do to be able to get to that next point in my career, in my life, as I transition out of grad school? Every week, I love being able to talk about these different issues because it takes time, it takes effort to find success in that journey. And that's what this show is all about. Every week, I love being able to bring you different guests, different people with different experiences that can share with you the journeys that they went on, but also be able to give you some resources, provide you with some insights and some other perspectives to help you as you go through this journey yourself. And today, we got 2 great guests with us, doctor Miroslava Chavez Garcia and doctor Yvette Martinez are both with us today. We're gonna talk about their own journey that they both went through in graduate school, but we're also gonna talk about a a brand new resource that I'm gonna share with you today called the Grad School Fentering, And we're gonna talk about that as well because it's another great resource for you as you are going through this journey yourself. Miros, Yvette, thank you so much for being with us today. Dr. Miroslava Chavez-Garcia [00:02:08]: Thank you so much for having us. Dr. Yvette Martinez-Vu [00:02:10]: Yes. Thank you for having us. Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:02:12]: You know, one of the things that I love doing first and foremost is having the power to turn the clock back in time. Wouldn't we all love to do that sometimes? But I would love to turn the clock back. And I'd love for both of you to take me back to that point, that point in your own graduate school journey where you said to yourself, you know what? I think I need to take that next step. What was that point for yourself? Why did you decide that you wanted to take that next step and go to graduate school? Dr. Yvette Martinez-Vu [00:02:42]: I'm happy to get started. This is Yvette Martinez Vu speaking. And, you know, one of the reasons why we decided we wanted to come on the show is because doctor Miroslava Chavez Garcia and I recently coauthored a book called Is Grad School For Me, demystifying the application process for 1st gen BIPOC students. And in the introduction of that book, we both tell our grad school journeys and what we both have in common. And I'll speak for myself that my experience was I felt like the decision to go to graduate school was actually made for me. In that, I was someone who was 1st gen in college. I'm Chicana. I came in as an English major. Dr. Yvette Martinez-Vu [00:03:25]: 1st in my family, I didn't know what I was doing. I was I was like, okay. English sounds interesting. I was a theater minor. I had been in productions acting for most of my youth. And folks kept telling me that you're not gonna make a living out of acting. So what's the next best thing? I discovered undergraduate research at the time I was at UCLA, and that was what was encouraged. I found out about this brand new program on campus called the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Research Fellowship. Dr. Yvette Martinez-Vu [00:03:54]: I applied. I got in, and I was one of 5 inaugural individuals. We were part of the first cohort there. And I felt that pressure because the program is meant to help support underrepresented students in diversifying academia. I felt the pressure of, oh, now I have to apply to graduate school, and now I have to become a professor. That's why I felt like I had no other option. I also felt like I had no other option given my circumstances as someone from a low income family raised by a single immigrant mom who she's a mom of 6. I didn't feel like I had space to go back home after college. Dr. Yvette Martinez-Vu [00:04:31]: Some of my peers were going home, getting part time, full time jobs. It was, you know, during the time of the 2008 recession where folks were struggling to figure out how to get a job right after their bachelor's degree. And I thought to myself, it's safer for me to go straight to graduate school, keep doing what I'm doing, what I've been told that I'm good at, and make a living even if it's not much of a living to be able to still pay my bills. And that's what landed me in graduate school, and that's how I arrived. I can talk more about the graduate school experience, but that's a whole other journey because I'm now someone who is outside of higher ed, still supporting folks in higher ed, but I didn't end up landing that tenure track job that a lot of folks dream of. And it was because of an intentional set of pivots on my end. So I'm happy to pass the baton over to Mira so she could share more about her story. Dr. Miroslava Chavez-Garcia [00:05:28]: Great. Thanks, Yvette. I love hearing Yvette's story all the time. I never get tired of it. It's so inspirational to me. I think we share a lot of experiences and that that is certainly what drew us to a very productive and I would say, very rewarding relationship in terms of our professional and also somewhat of course, that leads into the personal area, but being able to put this project together as book together. And we also worked together professionally at UC Santa Barbara, in the McNair Scholars Program. But I want to say for me, I think equally so mine wasn't like I wasn't in a Mellon Mays program, because when I went to grad school was like a couple decades before he vetted and we didn't have melon maze. Dr. Miroslava Chavez-Garcia [00:06:06]: There was no McNair to speak of those hadn't yet thought of. We didn't even know what first gen meant or within the context that we do now. So certainly, when I was in college, I was a 1st generation low income underrepresented student, Chicana, Latina, Mexican American from the barrio and never was at UCLA or stepped, you know, went to UCLA grad school from San Jose in Nevada, which I grew up. And so coming to UCLA, I was stunned, cluster shock, for sure. And so I think for me, the thought of grad school hadn't at all been on my radar, and we barely even call it going to the university was something that kind of like, oh, I guess I'll do this. And so when I got to undergrad, it really happened in my 4th to my 5th year when I took a summer program. There was a summer program available for minority students. And so I participate in that, and that gave me sort of a small taste for research and in history in particular. Dr. Miroslava Chavez-Garcia [00:06:52]: And I was really interested in recovering these histories that had not been told. And so just bringing back that sort of really important aspect of our history, Mexican American, Chicana, Chicano history, and ethnic history, and just in general that had been told. So that was kind of a little bit of my interest, my sort of moment there, I thought like, maybe this I had no idea what grad school was right when in there, keep saying like with blinders to some extent, certainly I had community and all kinds of support. That wouldn't have been possible without me being able to go through the process. But I think that moment when I decided, let's pursue grad school, I didn't really think as I think same same similar to as Yvette has said, I didn't really think I had other options. I thought like, do I go back home, I didn't really have a home anymore, per se. I was raised by my aunt and uncle. My parents died in a car accident when I was 12 years old. Dr. Miroslava Chavez-Garcia [00:07:37]: So it was just my brother and I who survived the accident. We were the only siblings anyways in the family. And my grandmother also passed in the accident that we had. So it was pretty traumatic. And my aunt uncle did were wonderful people who raised us as to the best of their ability. And when we we stayed in the same town where I grew up, so we were there. But you know, when I after college, I thought I can't go back there. I mean, I love them, they'd probably be welcome me. Dr. Miroslava Chavez-Garcia [00:08:02]: Maybe we had a very tiny home, they had 2 daughters, and they had their own lives to lead and also poor neighborhood and so forth. So I just thought, well, I needed you know, I have been in college by my on my own, and I felt very independent, and so that wasn't really an option. I just thought, like, well, let me go. It's sort of like if I knew then what I know now, I probably I'm not sure. I think I wouldn't have done it. There's different means, similar ends, but definitely, I was sort of took the plunge without quite knowing maybe that was a good thing. Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:08:26]: So both of you went through a process by which, as you said, both said, you didn't really think about grad school until later on, and you were pushed into it in many different ways. And you both chose your own paths. You both chose your own educational paths, your schools that you wanted to attend. As you were considering graduate school, when you got to that point where you decided that you wanted to go to graduate school, I'm sure that there were a number of different opportunities in front of you that you could have gone and studied at or decided to become a part of, but you chose a specific path in a specific school. Talk to me about what was going through each of your minds as you were making that final decision? And what was the tipping point for each of you on the program and the school that you ultimately chose? Dr. Yvette Martinez-Vu [00:09:24]: Once again, I feel like I had no other option. Let me say what happened in my case. At the time, I apply when I applied to graduate school, it was the beginning of my senior year in college. It was my 4th year. I had a year of a little less than a year of research experience under my belt, and I decided, okay. I'm gonna apply to a combination of master's programs and PhD programs. 4 and 4. 8, for some reason, it was a random number that sounded good to me. Dr. Yvette Martinez-Vu [00:09:52]: It's a nice even number. And I ended up getting into 2 masters programs and 1 PhD program. I did make the decision to pivot from English literature to theater and performance studies as a PhD. So that was a transition, and, therefore, I didn't know anybody in that department at my campus at UCLA, but I applied there for the PhD, and that's where I got in. And, ultimately, it was a decision of that had to do with finances, with location, and, really, that's about it. If I could go back in time, there would have been a lot of other things that I would have considered. I would have especially played more of an emphasis on the importance of finding a really solid, supportive mentor, adviser, chair of my dissertation. I did not look into that. Dr. Yvette Martinez-Vu [00:10:45]: Instead, I thought I got a full funding package. I'm gonna be here for at least 4 years. I'm close to home. Of course, it's a it's a yes. When I I once again, just to say to reiterate, I did not realize that there were so many other things to consider when making a a decision aside from location and finances. Dr. Miroslava Chavez-Garcia [00:11:06]: Yeah. So for me, somewhat similar in that. Again, I was definitely didn't know what I was doing at the time. I had a taste for research. I did have a supportive mentor, And the idea of working with him and doing a project on the 19th century is what what was fascinating and because there was very little research done in Mexican American history in the 19th century, especially on women, that was my interest to sort of go in there and tell it like it is right. This is what we were very ambitious when we're grad students, but that's good. But when so I only applied to 5 schools. Nobody told me to think of how many. Dr. Miroslava Chavez-Garcia [00:11:38]: I didn't have a you know, again, had no direction. I just applied. And, of course, it was a top school. So I think it was, like, Yale. I can't remember what else. Stanford, UC San Diego, and these other schools, and UCLA where I was already an undergrad. And that personal relationship I had with that mentor made that so that's the only school I got into essentially. So it was he he was able to open the door for me to go in and also provide a 1 year of funding. Dr. Miroslava Chavez-Garcia [00:11:58]: And because of affirmative action programs at the time, I was able to get a 4 year package after that. After my first year, I was able to so that provided quite a bit of stability in terms of funding. So that made it possible for me to go into this. What seemed like an exciting one, and we have no idea. Right? I think should have had practice like shadowing professors to see what life is really like. Because it's a it's a different lifestyle. I wouldn't say I could say challenging for some people. Definitely. Dr. Miroslava Chavez-Garcia [00:12:22]: I tell people give them little tips of what is involved. But for me, I also got that 1 year funding. I didn't really consider other options of what to do. Of course, now I know that having research skills, you can do many things. I did look at law school, I looked at the catalog and looked at the courses, and they just seemed so boring. I thought, like, God, I don't wanna do that. I just knew it. So I wanted to be able to read in research. Dr. Miroslava Chavez-Garcia [00:12:41]: The research part, I think, has always been my drive. Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:12:44]: Now every student that goes into graduate programs, whether it be master's degrees, doctorate degrees, law school, whatever it is, there is a transition. There's a transition from undergrad into grad school, just in general about how you're educated, but there's so many other transitions that you go through as well. Talk to me about the transitions that each of you had to go through to be able to make that switch from undergrad to grad student, and what you had to do to set yourself up for success at the beginning of the journey, and what you had to do throughout the journey to maintain that success for yourself. Dr. Yvette Martinez-Vu [00:13:24]: When I got in and I said yes, because I was switching departments and disciplines, I thought to myself, oh my goodness. They made a mistake. And now I have to play catch up. And I spent all summer trying to read all these foundational theater and performance studies texts, not knowing that a lot of it was critical theory. And I needed support in getting through those dense texts. And if I could go back in time, I would have relaxed. I would have slowed down. I would have enjoyed my last summer in a long time. Dr. Yvette Martinez-Vu [00:13:59]: I would have had off. So that's one thing that I did that I thought was gonna help me prepare, but it I don't know how much it actually helped. There were things that happened for me in my grad school journey that certainly helped me to make that pivot outside of the tenure track that I didn't know were going to help me. And it was just me leaning into my intuition and what felt good for me. In my 1st year of graduate school, everybody told me focus on your studies, focus on your research, and I was presented with an opportunity to become a graduate mentor for undergraduates, for Mellon May Fellows, and also for students who were involved in undergraduate research at the at the Center For Undergraduate Research at UCLA. And something just told me, I really wanna do this. It sounds like a great opportunity. I said yes, and I absolutely fell in love with it. Dr. Yvette Martinez-Vu [00:14:49]: That's when I realized, wow. I have a passion for service work, for mentoring, for guiding students. And this is something that not only do I enjoy, but it comes easy to me. So I kept that in the back of my head. Okay. In the future, I wanna make sure that I figure out a career where I can incorporate more of that service work. That was one thing. The second thing that I did was well, this wasn't something that directly helped me to prepare for my career, but helped me prepare for life was I actually became a mom in graduate school. Dr. Yvette Martinez-Vu [00:15:21]: And in becoming a mom, not only was it the single hardest thing for me to go through physically, emotionally, psychologically, but it was also one of the most empowering things for me to go through because I learned how to advocate for my child. And in learning how to advocate for my child, I learned how to advocate for myself. And in tending to my child's needs, I realized I had my own needs, and I became aware. Woah. Hold up. There so many nontraditional students on campus, so many different types of populations and folks who are not being served as best as they can, which led to me getting involved in advocacy work, student activist work, and really leaning into developing a community of support groups, including mother scholars, but also support groups of women of color scholars, of theater scholars, of just folks at different intersections of the work that I did. And in building these communities and support systems, that's what kept me going. And it wasn't until I got to the end of my graduate school time and started working full time, that's how I met Milos, was by, becoming the assistant, later the associate director of the McNair Scholars Program, that I've realized these were key moments and instances that led to me discovering what I was good at, discovering what was helping me out, and it's actually the type of guidance I offer to students. Dr. Yvette Martinez-Vu [00:16:43]: If they're really struggling, I say you need to build your support system. You need to build your community. You need to figure out what you're good at and lean into those things. Dr. Miroslava Chavez-Garcia [00:16:51]: Yeah. I would say for me that it was a little bit different in terms of, like, my focus. So I think my focus and, again, I think I was less conscious of what I was doing at the moment and what it meant for me to go to grad school as a Chicano, Latina immigrant at the time. For me, it was more focused around my intent was more focused around the intellectual work that I wanted to do and sort of the contributions I wanted to provide academically. Like, for me, it was repairing, filling, recovering these stories that filling the literature, addressing these histories that had not been told, and providing them for the community. Right? For to be able to be able to provide the community these mirrors that have been that have been absent for so long in textbooks and history books and everywhere media and so forth. So I saw myself contributing to that. And that was what drove me in grad school to keep doing that. Dr. Miroslava Chavez-Garcia [00:17:38]: Because I'll tell you the Q1, the first semester, whatever you wanna call it, was terrible. Like, I felt like every week I went home and cried. I had a headache. I thought, like, what am I doing here? So every week I wanted to quit. You know, I just thought this is, like, in reference to what Yvette was saying, the imposter phenomenon was real. So I just kept saying, like, what am I doing here? And so definitely the Q1, and I didn't do very well in one of my classes, I remember getting a b or a b minus, which essentially means you're on very thin ice, right? Because there's 2 grades, there's 3 grades and a plus an a and an a minus. I think or no. Maybe it's an a a minus and b plus. Dr. Miroslava Chavez-Garcia [00:18:11]: I think I gotta b plus in one class with this very well known historian. And so I was kinda crushed, and I thought instead of running away with the tail between my legs as they say or any kind of shame, I thought, like, I'll show her or I'll show them. So it really fueled my desire to represent, and I really gave it my all. So I guess it's part of that imposter phenomenon when we think we have to work twice and 3 times as hard. But for me, it was very much trying to fulfill an academic trying to an academic space trying to give back to the community in terms of like, what it needed, what I thought it needed in terms of history. So So those that was sort of my call. And this idea of knowledge is power. That was something that my peers and I and my peers were so critical to get into grad school. Dr. Miroslava Chavez-Garcia [00:18:52]: To 2 people in particular, that's how it kind of felt like we had a big number and then started dwindling and dwindling over the years. And there was 3 of us left standing, so to speak. And so we always had this commitment to our fields and to ourselves and to our to our community to keep doing this work. Or else at the end of the day, we wouldn't have finished. What's ultimately as well, it's equally to your project, to your subjects that you want this academic work you're doing. For me, that's what it was, and also to my community. So those two things really kept me when everything else seemed so challenging and you were fighting against it. Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:19:23]: Now I appreciate both of you talking about your own journeys because I think that this leads really well into not only the book that you wrote, but also into grad school FEMTuring that I mentioned at the beginning. And I know that Grad School FEMTuring LLC was founded by you, Yvette, and it provides 1st gen students of color with support, skills, and tools to empower themselves to thrive in grad school and beyond. And I guess, could you take a couple of minutes here and elaborate a little bit more on the concept of mentoring and its distinctness from traditional mentoring. Dr. Yvette Martinez-Vu [00:20:02]: Yes. Of course. So one of the the reasons why this book even exists is because of the femtorship relationship that Milos and I both have. In the book, we wanted to make sure that we clarified what we meant by ment by femtorship as opposed to mentorship, and we explicitly state that femtorship is a type of mentoring that incorporates an intersectional feminist lens. And in doing so, it takes into account a holistic perspective or providing a holistic type of support that is inclusive of different aspects of an individual's identity that may impact the kind of support that they need. This includes all the identity markers, race, ethnicity, class, gender, disability, etcetera. And so for us, it was important to make a nod to that and also to call attention to the fact that a lot of times this type of work is service work, and a lot of times it's also gender type of work. And so for us, we wanted to make that distinction because traditional forms of mentorship aren't always providing that holistic type of support. Dr. Yvette Martinez-Vu [00:21:10]: Yes. They're still providing guidance. They might still be teaching. They might still be offering insights to the mentee, but it doesn't necessarily call into mind that you know, the multiple different aspects of support that a student may need. So that's why we wanted to make that distinction and also to make that nod in the book that not only was it inspired by our relationship with Milos being my own femtor, she was once my supervisor, and it was one of the first times I say this, and I can't keep stating this enough. Meeting Miroslava was one of the first times of me experiencing someone who saw me as my full self, not just my professional self, and who provided support and who advocated on my on my behalf. In fact, when by the time she came in as my supervisor, I was on my way out. I was already planning my exit strategy, and she was trying to find ways to keep me in. Dr. Yvette Martinez-Vu [00:22:06]: I was like, I love you, but I've made my decision. And also thank you for showing me that there is another way of doing things. So, yes, it's a nod to that, and it's also a nod to the podcast, which is also by the same title, Grad School Fem Touring. A lot of the material we've shared is material that we have shared 1 on 1 in our own supporting students and also that I have shared publicly on the podcast so that everybody has access to this Dr. Miroslava Chavez-Garcia [00:22:32]: information. Also adding to what Yvette just so beautifully stated, a lot of what we were most what we provide in the book, right, comes from our personal experiences. But also I would add that a lot of it comes based from research and research evidence based practices that is in the research that we have used in McNair, but also that we have used in our own work and certainly Yvette in our own work. I just, right, holistic approach that's evidence based practice that we know that that works most effectively with the student populations that we're dealing with, or the the, you know, the wraparound services or the sort of taking the whole the whole approach, not just providing mentorship, or providing a research experience. You need to provide them other tools. So that's one of the things that we incorporate as well. So it's not just like, here anecdotal experiences, and we're gonna make this fit for everyone. No. Dr. Miroslava Chavez-Garcia [00:23:17]: We're basing our our work on the research that's out there. Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:23:20]: Now, Miro, you just talked about your personal experiences. You both kinda shared some of your own personal experiences in the journeys that both of you went on. How did your own personal experiences as first gen students of color shape the advice and the guidance that you're providing in the book, but also, Yvette, in the podcast? Sure. Dr. Miroslava Chavez-Garcia [00:23:43]: I think as we've kind of been implicitly stating is that fundamental to where the book deeply shaped our own experiences have deeply shaped the book. I think that Yvette's perspective and our experience or many years of doing this work have helped the book take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Right? To be able to structure the book the way it's structured. It's structured very intentionally around the different points that people need to consider for graduate school and how that process is laid out. So she did a wonderful job in doing that, and I sort of chimed in and how we're needed. But because she has that direct experience to 1 on 1 and doing that kind of work where I'm more an academic space, and we do that. I do that in different ways through McNair. I think that you've had brought that very much so. Dr. Miroslava Chavez-Garcia [00:24:22]: So definitely our personal experiences, I mean, the need and the drive for the demand. I mean, Yvette said many times, as I've talked with her about how she had this book in mind for years, I've done lots of articles around professional development around writing around balancing work life around power and privilege. I've done all these articles I never thought of now that we've been talking about it, like, this is a coal you know, coalesce all these ideas or integrate all these ideas in this book has been. I did it without thinking, but I think that thinking about it intentionally, but Yvette certainly has. And I'm so grateful for that that this oh, here it is. You know, here's what I've been doing little pieces, little piece work, but it's integrated in a whole space. And hopefully, it might be a follow-up. We'll see. Dr. Yvette Martinez-Vu [00:25:03]: I want to add to that because Miros mentioned that we came together to write this book and that the book is shaped by the podcast and by the support that we've been providing, the guidance that we've been providing to students. And for me, my experience in undergrad was one of feeling like the space was not only very confusing and difficult to navigate, but also very inaccessible. I didn't know when I was an undergraduate that I was neurodivergent. It only became something for me to when my own child was diagnosed on the autism spectrum. This was 7 years ago. And as I did more research, I realized, oh, we've got a lot in common. There's something here. I've always struggled with x, y, and z, and I've always found student norms to be very confusing. Dr. Yvette Martinez-Vu [00:25:50]: So every step of the way, when I was navigating college, when I was navigating graduate school, I had so many questions, not enough answers. I just wanted someone to show me the how. Just show me how. And so it you talk to anybody who has known me for over a decade, I was I was someone whom I created binders. I literally before we had Google Drive, I had my binders of handouts. And I would start to even when I worked at the undergraduate research center, I created binders so students could come and pull up the binders with the tabs, how to do this, how to send an email, how to because those are the concerns that I had, and I found in gathering these resources and sharing them, more people were benefiting from the things that I found to be struggles. And that's actually how the podcast, came about. I was running out of bandwidth in supporting students. Dr. Yvette Martinez-Vu [00:26:40]: I had a lot of folks who were asking me to mentor them beyond the McNair Scholars Program. I only had enough hours in the day, and I thought, I keep repeating myself. I sound like a broken record. I need to do something about it. I had podcasting experience from starting a podcast with another collective. And so I created a podcast and started sharing it just with my mentees, mentees, and then the mentee shared it with the mother and another. And all of this unfolded into, again, what was once this frustration of wondering why is there no book that's teaching me this to then developing these resources over time so that by the time we sat down to write it, we wrote it in 6 months. Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:27:18]: And I think each of you talked a little bit about imposter syndrome. And as you went through your own journeys, that you felt it in some ways. And I've heard that many times from individuals that go through graduate school that at least one point in their journey, they're going to have that feeling of why am I here? Why was I selected? What am I doing? Am I qualified? Lots of questions like that. As you have been femtoring other students, what are some strategies that you found that you have been sharing with those students that they can employ to overcome those feelings of imposter syndrome throughout that journey that they're going on? Dr. Yvette Martinez-Vu [00:28:03]: So one of the distinctions that we made in the book is,