Does it matter if your parents have a higher education to have a successful career?
I came across this article titled “From homeless to Ph.D.: How I found my way into research“ and published in Science Magazine.
This article made me wonder how many students and PhD students think that they have less chances of succeeding because they come from a family where their parents didn’t have access to high education. That they may worry they don’t have access to “the code” to be as successful as their more privileged peers.
I grew up in a family where no one got higher education. My parents stopped after mandatory school when they were 15, because it was not popular to go to university and their parents anyway had no money for it. I spent my childhood and teenagerhood in a popular area, surrounded by second-generation kiddos who also didn’t come from high-income families. None of my friends’ parents had studied at universities.
When I started studying pharmacy at 18, I had no idea what studying actually meant. I was the first one to go to university and had no one around me who could show me the way. The first months definitely felt like a crash course! Few years later, I also didn’t really know what to expect when I signed for a PhD. I had a vague idea about what the word “research” means, but the rest was pretty blurry. Even “research” was actually a blurry concept.
I remember a funny anecdote that happened
during the fist weeks of my PhD. I was tailoring my Outlook signature
to have something very professional and stylish at the same time. I was
so proud of my emails finishing with the touch “Isabelle Kohler,
Pharmacist, PhD”! So proud, until the moment one of my PhD colleagues
told me that “PhD” actually meant “having a PhD already” and not “being
in the long process of getting a PhD”. I actually had no idea about what
the word PhD meant, because I had never heard it before. I also had no
idea there were different layers of Professors, and no idea about what
Professors were actually doing with their time.
And yet, today, I’m supervising PhD students and students myself. Even though my path is totally different than what the author of this article mentioned (and I’m extremely grateful I grew up in a loving family in such a privileged country called Switzerland), I recognize some of her fears and doubts that I also had as a (PhD) student.
So if you’re a (PhD) students and you have the same concerns, do know that the starting point is one thing, but the journey and the destination you have in mind are way more important.
Image: www.canva.com (2023)
