'I was late learning about science; I didn’t even know what research was until I was 20 years old. For much of my scientific training I feared I was behind my peers. But I have been able to close the gap—and that is something to be proud of.'
A few weeks into my Ph.D. program, as the new students were still getting acquainted with one another, the conversation turned to our parents’ professions. I wasn’t surprised to learn that quite a few of my new classmates had parents who were professors; the rest were in other highly respected professions. I was too embarrassed to share that my parents had no higher education. They were denied it because they grew up during the Cultural Revolution in China.
In the months that followed, I spent my days studying full-time at the small local college and working various part-time jobs. At night I couch surfed at friends’ places or slept in my car in parking lots. I constantly worried about my next meal and where I was going to spend the night. I was just trying to survive, day by day, with no prospects for the future.
But I frequently felt insecure about my prospects. One physics professor liked to show off photos of his son as a boy with Nobel laureates and brag about how the son started doing research as a high schooler. Oh, yes, his wife was a physics professor, too. I feared my late start meant my scientific career was doomed to failure.
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