00;00;00;24 - 00;00;16;22
Liz Kay
Hello and welcome to the Providence College podcast, I'm Liz Kaye. As we approach the end of 2021, let's revisit a conversation that resonated with many podcast listeners. Our episode with Dr. Mable Abraham of the Class of 2003 and Dr. Christian Patel of the Class of 2007.

00;00;17;13 - 00;00;25;07
Liz Kay
Abraham and Teller were first generation students when they enrolled at Providence College. And despite that challenge from success in academia. Let's listen.

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Liz Kay
Hello and welcome to the Providence College podcast. I'm your host, Liz Kaye. I'm joined by producer Chris Judge of the Class of 2005 here in the Providence College podcast. We bring you interesting stories from the fryer family. This week, we're literally highlighting a family.

00;00;39;28 - 00;00;56;12
Liz Kay
We're talking with Dr. Mable Abraham of the Class of 2003. And Dr. Tristan Barcelo of the Class of 2007. These siblings have a lot in common. They both graduated from PC. They both earned doctorates from MIT Sloan School of Management, and now they both teach at Ivy League institutions.

00;00;56;25 - 00;01;12;22
Liz Kay
Abraham teaches at Columbia University and Botelho, as at Yale. There's another unique fact about these two. They were both first generation college students, meaning they were the first in their family to graduate from college. We're excited to talk to them as national first generation College Celebration Day approaches on November eighth.

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Liz Kay
Mabel Interessen Thank you so much for joining us.

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Dr. Mabel Abraham
Thank you. It's our pleasure.

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Liz Kay
Thanks for having us. So maybe we could just start at the very beginning. What brought you both to Providence College? Maybe, maybe you should go first. You were the.

00;01;24;00 - 00;01;40;22
Dr. Mabel Abraham
first as the first one. Maybe I'll I'll jump off. It's interesting because when I often tell the story, when I think about my path to PC or my path to higher education, I have sort of a limited lens and that starts getting into the factors of being a first generation college student.

00;01;41;17 - 00;01;54;27
Dr. Mabel Abraham
I was thinking about where I applied and I applied for school, so I applied to be to Boston College, to you or I and to Brian. And I think it's funny now thinking back on it because I didn't really have a broader perspective on what else I should be thinking about.

00;01;55;24 - 00;02;07;16
Dr. Mabel Abraham
So my decision to go to me was partly that I knew I didn't want to go far from home. Another thing that I think first generation college students often experience, I wanted to stay relatively close to folks harder to go farther away.

00;02;08;22 - 00;02;27;23
Dr. Mabel Abraham
I got great financial support from D.C.. Another important factor again, specifically thinking about first generation college students. And at the time, I was thinking about pursuing biology, science, thinking pre-med and thought it was attractive, that there was a program between pizza and brown that potentially gave me a pathway to end up going to brown from school.

00;02;28;12 - 00;02;38;12
Dr. Mabel Abraham
So those were the driving factors. But since I know we have a broad audience base that we'll be listening to this, I think sort of my advice and thinking back on that is that I should have looked much broader.

00;02;38;13 - 00;02;49;23
Dr. Mabel Abraham
There are so many schools and ended up being great for me, but for someone else who might not have landed in a place where they'd like to be, had I made that, the bigger it would have just been a safer way to go.

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Liz Kay
And you both grew up in East Providence, right?

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Dr. Mabel Abraham
Correct. Correct.

00;02;54;02 - 00;03;09;01
Liz Kay
Because we definitely have today, you know, first generation students who come to from all over the country, Texas, California, you know, many people are making that choice, but like choosing PC as their destination school. So that's really interesting advice.

00;03;09;19 - 00;03;12;09
Liz Kay
I'm interested in how how did you find problems coming?

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Tristan Botelho
Yeah. So it was interesting when I think back to that moment, you know, Mabel was in college, was applying to college. And you know, one thing about the age difference that's always been helpful is a seeing her kind of set, you know, various examples along the way has been useful, but also our closeness and age, even though

00;03;37;27 - 00;03;54;22
Tristan Botelho
she's, you know, three and a half years older meant that it was really hard to distill information that quickly. I remember, you know, even applying to schools and I don't know at 21 years old, if you've figured it out enough to give anyone advice, that's that concrete, right?

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Tristan Botelho
I think now and maybe five years ago, you know, I could start giving people like really like like thoughtful advice about how to think about the process, the pros and cons. But if someone asked me as a junior in college, hey, how should I think about college?

00;04;07;15 - 00;04;28;17
Tristan Botelho
I'd probably say, Oh, I'm having a lot of fun here. Like, there's not that much information that can be given. So the approach is very similar. A handful of schools, you know, got into most of them. But you know, one thing that's just a fact I think of most first gen students, regardless of the city state you

00;04;28;17 - 00;04;44;12
Tristan Botelho
come from, if you are from an immigrant family like ours or not, is finances are usually top of mind. And he gave a great mix of merit, scholarship and financial aid that it just wouldn't have been feasible otherwise.

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Tristan Botelho
When we think about like a return on investment, thinking about other options that I had when you looked at maybe the U.S. news rank, you'd say like, Wow, you didn't go there, but it's like, Yeah, but it would have cost like $40,000 per year, whereas at the time, you know, our PC.

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Tristan Botelho
We put all the kind of the scholarship and the funding it together. We were talking about an amount much, much less than that. So I think that, you know, it's an important thing for all students. I'm sure everyone's always kind of watching their bank account before first gen students in particular.

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Tristan Botelho
It's something that has to be top of mind. So what we're trying to do is you're trying to find this really nice combination of a rigorous education that seems like you'll have a good time and meet great friends, but also one that you can afford.

00;05;32;29 - 00;05;46;00
Tristan Botelho
And Providence offer that like I knew, you know, having a better a friend of my entire life, the basketball team and things of that nature, and you would be a lot of fun. And that and that played out, you know, my two random roommates were both of my wedding party.

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Tristan Botelho
So like, that's the kind of relationship I got to build while being there. And I knew from Mabel's experience that she learned, you know, a lot of interesting things had a good internship opportunities. I thought like, OK, they're checking off that box as well.

00;05;58;22 - 00;06;13;19
Tristan Botelho
You know, I can't really justify taking on a massive amount of debt for, you know, 20 or 30 ranks on the U.S. college list. You know, not that I put much, you know, I don't subscribe much to that kind of ranking to begin with.

00;06;13;20 - 00;06;26;11
Tristan Botelho
But you know, those are the decisions that I think like a 17 year old is thinking through. And when you don't have, you know, when we say, first gen students, you know, maybe it was literally the first in terms of aunts, uncles, cousins.

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Tristan Botelho
It's not in the family of four that we grew up in our second. So it's like, you can't just pick up the phone, you know, and call someone and be like, Hey, like, how should I think about this?

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Tristan Botelho
So it really relied on us kind of doing our own research and not to date us, but I guess you did it with our class year. The internet was around and we had the internet, you know, in full use for the information you could get back then was much, much different in terms of how we should be

00;06;49;14 - 00;07;03;22
Tristan Botelho
thinking about it. I still got brochures in the mail when I was applying to schools and I filled out some applications by hand. So, so that's kind of the long winded short of it of how, you know, Providence was the was the choice that that I made.

00;07;04;21 - 00;07;21;03
Dr. Mabel Abraham
I was going to and when it's just that, the thing that I think really hit the nail on the head about updating and processing of information. It's really interesting to reflect on this today, and this certainly isn't the first time I thought about this as far as what are the unique challenges or what are the things that

00;07;21;13 - 00;07;37;11
Dr. Mabel Abraham
shaped my path as a first generation college student. But I feel like but at the time, I realized what I could have done differently. It is no exaggeration to say that it's like ten years later and like another example of that that just came to mind at those hearing him described as I remember getting to see and

00;07;37;11 - 00;07;55;18
Dr. Mabel Abraham
learning that people had practice for the city they had like taken Kaplan courses. My mind was literally blown. I was like, Oh my goodness, I sat for the you twice and I improve my score marginally and I maybe, maybe at the time did look up something online that I thought would be beneficial, but had zero knowledge of

00;07;55;18 - 00;08;07;21
Dr. Mabel Abraham
what I needed to do to do better. So I feel like all of those kinds of things, all of those kinds of lessons come just a little too late and you're not doing how those pieces fit together to shape your path.

00;08;08;03 - 00;08;24;12
Dr. Mabel Abraham
Of course, you highlighted how Christine and I are now teaching an Ivy League school, so it all worked out and it's all great, and I'm grateful for every stepping stone along the way. But all of those different steps were more challenging because I simply lacked the knowledge or the resources to be able to figure out how to

00;08;24;12 - 00;08;35;20
Dr. Mabel Abraham
give myself a leg up. And I think that's a constant thing that I know I face from applying to school, literally through graduating my Ph.D. and sometimes still deal with it in my current job, but definitely less now.

00;08;36;02 - 00;08;42;24
Dr. Mabel Abraham
And so I think the fact that that knowledge just comes a little too late and you don't know where to look for it is one of the biggest challenges, really.

00;08;43;12 - 00;08;48;25
Tristan Botelho
And to give a quick example, her mind was so blown about the prep courses is that she never even told me about it.

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Dr. Mabel Abraham
So I had so much to tell. I mean, there is so much that you can't really do.

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Liz Kay
So can we talk a little bit about your family and how they were able to help or support you? I mean, how did they feel about you making the decision? You two were really pioneers for your family and sounds on multiple generations to take this plunge into higher education?

00;09;10;19 - 00;09;18;29
Liz Kay
What was your what were your parents and all of the extended family? How did they react and support you as they could through this journey?

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Dr. Mabel Abraham
So it's really interesting because I think when I think about the common challenges that these first generation college students, we organize them in my mind, at least, is there are two categories one categories what we've already talked a little bit about, which relates to like a lack of knowledge, a lack of understanding of how things work or

00;09;35;13 - 00;09;50;02
Dr. Mabel Abraham
what you can do to sort of advance your position. The second category that you hear a lot about is family struggles that come from tensions, often with I'm climbing out of this position and I'm going to get my education, get a college degree, but no one else has.

00;09;50;02 - 00;10;01;12
Dr. Mabel Abraham
And how that that can play some tension, I think, and I'll let Kristen sort of speak for himself. But I think that we would both agree that we were very, very lucky that our challenges were predominantly in that first category.

00;10;01;13 - 00;10;22;22
Dr. Mabel Abraham
It was a lack of knowledge, but it wasn't tension stemming from our family. It's incredible to me thinking back at how supportive my parents really were. They recognized despite not having an education themselves, they recognized the value of education and specifically, even when we were very young, recognized the value of not only doing well in school, but

00;10;22;22 - 00;10;38;16
Dr. Mabel Abraham
then going to college and getting a degree and ideally getting an advanced degree that they have that insight and sort of distill that information from such a young age. My parents had me when they were 22, so they were very young themselves and blows my mind, I guess, just like such an incredible thing that we had that

00;10;38;23 - 00;10;50;03
Dr. Mabel Abraham
that gifted they they couldn't tell us how to do it, but they definitely were there telling us to do it and encouraging us to figure it out and supporting us along the way. So I feel like when that tension perspective, we didn't really have it.

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Dr. Mabel Abraham
I think there's sometimes like internal struggles with extended family where you start thinking like, Oh, my older cousins didn't go to school and do they think that I'm elitist? And even if it isn't actually true, right? Often these things are unfounded.

00;11;02;20 - 00;11;13;27
Dr. Mabel Abraham
I think there's some of that, and I definitely experienced some of that where I just I was self-imposed these perspectives that, oh, does my aunt or my cousin think that I think I'm better than them or I'm doing something?

00;11;13;27 - 00;11;31;21
Dr. Mabel Abraham
And that's not at all the case. But it definitely is a part of the struggle, and I think that that sort of speaks to that second category. But from an immediate nuclear family perspective, 100%, I feel like my parents supported us and financially supported us, which I think is another way that a lot of first generation college

00;11;31;21 - 00;11;47;24
Dr. Mabel Abraham
students don't have that benefit. My dad worked two jobs our entire childhood, and my mom stayed home and took care of us. So they both, from my perspective, worked equally hard just in very different ways. And so I think that the fact that they were willing to do that and make those sacrifices so that sure we couldn't

00;11;47;24 - 00;11;58;21
Dr. Mabel Abraham
afford to go to the 40,000 dollar a year school or if that wasn't reasonable or doable for our family. But my parents did contribute in every way that they could, working as much as they needed to to make it happen.

00;11;59;03 - 00;12;05;15
Dr. Mabel Abraham
And so I consider us very lucky that we basically faced the lack of knowledge challenge, but had all the support that we needed.

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Tristan Botelho
Yeah, I think that was great. I wouldn't, you know, have much to add. Our parents are always extremely supportive of every decision we make, be it seemingly rational or irrational, as long as it comes from a good place.

00;12;21;19 - 00;12;38;06
Tristan Botelho
And they instilled in us, you know, the necessary drive to be kind, work hard and be thankful. And that carries on through both of us every single day that, you know, you should be very thankful for the position that you're in.

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Tristan Botelho
Be proud of the work that you do and be kind to those people you. You meet along the way, and that's something that sticks with with us, I think, in our regular interactions and gives us the ability throughout our lives to, you know, try really hard because people said they stressed the importance of education.

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Tristan Botelho
They stressed the importance of, you know, thinking big and not, you know, shying away from challenges. It was never the case of kind of taking the easy road or doing something because, you know, there's less frictions. It was always about, you know, do you want to do this?

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Tristan Botelho
How does it make you feel? And, you know, really embracing that, which I think is hard to do. You know, like a good example of that is even like choosing a career as an academic. My goal was actually to go straight through through undergrad.

00;13;27;00 - 00;13;45;02
Tristan Botelho
It was actually, you know, professors at Providence who brought this really good point around, you know, you could work for a few years given those kind of things you want to do. Research on are very organizational, very kind of finance or strategy related at the time, whatever it was that I was kind of interested in.

00;13;45;17 - 00;14;00;19
Tristan Botelho
And then you could decide to go to academia. And you know, my first job out of college was as an investment banker, which is, you know, hopefully less rare now for alums. But at the time, there was almost no one in the alumni network who had done that whatsoever.

00;14;00;28 - 00;14;14;27
Tristan Botelho
And when I told them, you know that that was still a dream of mine to go into academia, you really have to love your kid for them to tell you that they're going to throw away like a well-paying career to go make, you know, $30,000 as a Ph.D. student.

00;14;15;03 - 00;14;31;13
Tristan Botelho
And they were all for it. And that's the support they've always given us, regardless of what we've decided to do. And I think that that's the most important thing because you have that like network of people who will be your biggest cheerleaders, but also be willing to check you if you're wrong.

00;14;31;20 - 00;14;44;12
Tristan Botelho
You know, that's how you get, you get ahead and that's how you get things done. So they've always been there in that capacity. Even now, as adults with kids of our own, you know, helping us along the way, which is always something that we appreciate.

00;14;45;10 - 00;14;55;10
Dr. Mabel Abraham
I was going to another example just made me think of how I mentioned that when I started, I thought it was going to go into medicine. And it's not. It's not like just by chance that I thought medicine.

00;14;55;11 - 00;15;13;01
Dr. Mabel Abraham
It's really because when you're a first generation college student, very often you can't identify what careers will basically check off the necessary boxes of being relatively high status. This is the thing about if I'm in a prestigious job, I've sort of made it will give you a livable wage where you can live comfortably and have a good

00;15;13;01 - 00;15;29;07
Dr. Mabel Abraham
income, and that the educational educational component aligns with your abilities and aptitude. So I sort of checked those boxes for me, and even at the very beginning when I was applying to school, I remember my parents saying, like, I don't know, like, I don't think I can't see you as a doctor.

00;15;29;07 - 00;15;41;26
Dr. Mabel Abraham
Like, I can't see you being comfortable in medical school and sort of sitting in an operating room. And those things just don't align with who you are as a person. But they supported it. There were like, You know, if that's what you think you want, you should do it.

00;15;42;17 - 00;15;58;12
Dr. Mabel Abraham
And even that and again, thinking back, it's really interesting for immigrant family and immigrant family to then tell their child that this prestigious job to not just be like, Yes, go for it, this is what you should do, but to actually try to create those checks and balances in saying, You know, I know you and you're emotional

00;15;58;12 - 00;16;13;07
Dr. Mabel Abraham
when you see someone like falling hurt their knee, like, how are you going to handle being a pediatrician or dealing with sick kids? But they were willing to sort of pull back and encourage me to then pursue a degree in math where I didn't know what the application of math would be.

00;16;13;07 - 00;16;23;12
Dr. Mabel Abraham
I didn't have a clear path forward, but they wanted me to do something I was excited about interested in and that they thought I would be good at in that I would enjoy, even if the path forward wasn't super clear to them.

00;16;24;00 - 00;16;35;10
Dr. Mabel Abraham
So that was very similar to the Christian story Justin shared about thinking about a high paying career. But even as a student, they're like, No, you love math, do it. You'll figure out the career later. Like, Don't worry about that.

00;16;36;23 - 00;16;52;01
Liz Kay
That is fantastic support and very generous and intuitive, I mean, they knew you both really well. It seems like trusting what was your ambition when you started college, what did you foresee doing in the future when you got started and you have kind of an interesting pairing of undergraduate majors?

00;16;52;01 - 00;16;53;13
Liz Kay
You were a history in finance.

00;16;54;02 - 00;17;06;12
Tristan Botelho
It's interesting because I was history. Finance took a bunch of math and stats class as well. And you know, I'm still like if my bookshelf is only like, halfway visible here. If you look at it's like, what does this guy do?

00;17;06;12 - 00;17;18;27
Tristan Botelho
Even, you know, it's a mixture of math and stats, books, history books like poetry, philosophy. I just, you know, I've always been interested, which I think can get you a lot of trouble, you know, early on in college.

00;17;19;00 - 00;17;40;05
Tristan Botelho
Because if you just stay interested, you have to pick something that you want to major in or get an internship in. So the history part of it is just kind of an initial passion of mine. Like always, you know, was kind of obsessed with early American history, Greek history and just, you know, fascinated by it as a

00;17;40;05 - 00;17;57;22
Tristan Botelho
kid. And so I went to Providence. I knew that that that part of my identity would have to remain just because it's something that I'm genuinely interested in when it comes to finance, quite honestly. You know, it goes back to a marvel saying in terms of being a first generation college student, it plays a large theme.

00;17;57;26 - 00;18;13;23
Tristan Botelho
I remember meeting with my career. I don't know if they still do this, but in your first term or second term, you'd meet with career development. They would just talk to you about careers. And I remember asking the woman at the time who was the director, I forget her name that was assigned to me.

00;18;14;16 - 00;18;27;25
Tristan Botelho
I just asked her point blank. I said, What is one of the more high paying jobs an undergraduate could get? And they said, Well, like working in finance is going to be ed and then. And then she talked about investment banking and I went home and I remember, you know, so we're back to my room.

00;18;27;25 - 00;18;42;02
Tristan Botelho
I remember searching and seeing that, you know, it was always on the list of, you know, high paying jobs and I had bought stocks beforehand is interested in the market as a mechanism, but not really interested in, let's say, any part of finance.

00;18;42;12 - 00;18;52;20
Tristan Botelho
So that was it. I said, OK, if that's going to be something that is seemingly interesting, it's kind of competitive, which I enjoy and it's high paying. I was going to get it and that's going to be the job.

00;18;52;22 - 00;19;10;27
Tristan Botelho
So I added on the major finance for that purpose. You know, it sounds quite practical, but that's exactly what it was at the time. I think that that's, you know, that's kind of what my thinking was in terms of I knew, like just being a history major had some clear outs, right?

00;19;10;27 - 00;19;24;24
Tristan Botelho
You know, people went to law school, people did other interesting jobs, but it was more limited. And then if this is true that you know, these jobs in finance that I knew less about were kind of prestigious, high paying, then that made sense.

00;19;25;01 - 00;19;38;29
Tristan Botelho
So I know I added that on and it was really my junior year when I started doing research that I was, you know, kind of head over heels with academia and doing that as a career. And it wasn't until, like I said before, you know, advisors, I had that said, Hey, hold on.

00;19;39;03 - 00;19;51;11
Tristan Botelho
You know, you could always do that a little later. Like, you have a really high GPA. You have, you know, you've taken classes like you could really get one of these jobs. So why don't you try that first?

00;19;52;01 - 00;20;06;22
Tristan Botelho
And through, you know, networking and a little bit of trickery, you know, I was able to kind of land those kinds of jobs and it was. Lots, lots of lots of fun, I learned a lot through that, met a lot of interesting people.

00;20;06;27 - 00;20;18;15
Tristan Botelho
But it was always in the back of my mind, Hey, you've always wanted to do this other thing and I've always kind of, you know, tried to follow kind of my my passion and the stuff that I feel strongly about.

00;20;18;15 - 00;20;22;09
Tristan Botelho
And that's what made me end up leaving to go back and get a graduate degree.

00;20;22;21 - 00;20;48;05
Liz Kay
That's interesting because you both went back to get graduate degrees in sound like trust in like your your idea about entering academia started kind of in college. How about you? Maybe when did you think? I mean you. You also graduated with a math major and then worked in in the financial services sector right after after graduation.

00;20;48;10 - 00;20;53;04
Liz Kay
So what made you take a turn and decide to go back for your degree?

00;20;53;27 - 00;21;09;02
Dr. Mabel Abraham
So it's interesting. I didn't have quite how Christmas is describing, like I didn't have that deep seated thought that I would go into academia as an undergrad. I sort of flirted with the idea during my junior senior year at the time, but I thought I would do is pursue a Ph.D. in math.

00;21;09;28 - 00;21;25;02
Dr. Mabel Abraham
But what I also knew at that time was that I was not loving the more abstract because we got into real analysis. The more abstract math wasn't as enticing to me. So I talked to some of my advisors about pursuing a Ph.D. in statistics.

00;21;25;27 - 00;21;37;14
Dr. Mabel Abraham
We talked about it. We sort of we sort of thought through the possibilities, but I wasn't brought in. I wasn't sure if that was just like it seemed like an obvious next thing to do with a degree in math, or it actually was what I wanted to do.

00;21;38;07 - 00;21;52;16
Dr. Mabel Abraham
So I ended up discovering the path of actuarial science. So basically a different application of math and very similar, my advisor saying, Why don't you work for a couple of years and get some applied math experience in the field?

00;21;52;16 - 00;22;10;07
Dr. Mabel Abraham
And if you have this interest, it's always a possibility down the line as well. But he wasn't. I don't think he was convinced that I really wanted to pursue a Ph.D. in statistics. So I ended up working at Fidelity, initially as an actuary and taking a number of the actuarial exams and very quickly realizing that I wasn't

00;22;10;07 - 00;22;22;07
Dr. Mabel Abraham
that interested in that. And the things that look at again, looking back, the things that I didn't love about that job was that it was especially as an early career person, really independent work where you didn't have a lot of interaction with other people.

00;22;22;28 - 00;22;36;11
Dr. Mabel Abraham
And anyone who knows me knows that I'm quite a social person and want to be having conversations most of the time. And it just was. It didn't really align with my personality. So I explored a couple of different jobs at Fidelity and the same fidelity for five years.

00;22;37;02 - 00;22;54;18
Dr. Mabel Abraham
And during that time, I became really fascinated by some of the social dynamics at work, and that's where my initial interest on setting gender inequality and thinking about gender came into play. I realized really small things like some of the VPNs that I respected the most that were women didn't speak up when we were in meetings with

00;22;54;18 - 00;23;04;21
Dr. Mabel Abraham
the entire team, but they were really vocal and these smaller team meetings with their subordinates, I sort of thought, like, why is that? Like, why are the women who are so powerful in some setting for not speaking up?

00;23;05;14 - 00;23;19;17
Dr. Mabel Abraham
I realize that people struggle to balance work and family situations, right? Like lots of new moms thinking about, like, how do I take leave? What does that mean for my career down the line? So as I sort of sort of have these different exposures in the workplace, I started wondering where could I study?

00;23;19;21 - 00;23;32;20
Dr. Mabel Abraham
What would a job be, where I could better understand these things that I think are interesting? Like, what job would that even be? And I thought about sociology. I thought maybe a degree in sociology would be like an understanding of these structures and how the world works.

00;23;33;15 - 00;23;52;14
Dr. Mabel Abraham
And I remember having conversations with Tristan at the time, actually sitting in my parent's backyard with all of these kind of ideas floating around and him. I believe suggesting that I look at programs in management, but essentially like thinking about work-life questions and taking this perspective and looking at these management issues and not just going to got

00;23;52;14 - 00;24;07;04
Dr. Mabel Abraham
things rolling. I remember having this binder again because even as in 2002 thousand 67, this was like printing out different information about different programs and figuring out where I wanted to apply ended up applying that year and enrolling thereafter.

00;24;07;22 - 00;24;21;04
Dr. Mabel Abraham
And so it's sort of like a slow and again, in hindsight, thinking about my interest in math and what I enjoyed about math was like the application and the logic that went into it. And it turns out that in my Ph.D. program into my career, I basically do the statistical work.

00;24;21;04 - 00;24;35;25
Dr. Mabel Abraham
I do quantitative research. Answering these questions that I was only exposed to were sort of made aware of by working for a couple of years, but bringing that mathematical background to analyze data and thinking about how I can answer these questions using real world data.

00;24;36;05 - 00;24;44;14
Dr. Mabel Abraham
And so it seems perfectly synergistic now. It didn't seem clear to me at the onset when I first graduated, but through my work experience, I kind of landed on this path.

00;24;45;06 - 00;24;49;18
Liz Kay
And Tristan, were you always thinking you were going to get a degree of go get a doctorate in management?

00;24;50;03 - 00;25;07;21
Tristan Botelho
Yeah. So I was actually. You know, one thing that's interesting, I guess I'll phrase this winning interesting thing about questions that have to do with, you know, organizations markets as a context. There are so many interesting lenses you can take there.

00;25;07;21 - 00;25;22;10
Tristan Botelho
So I was quite open to various viewpoints for the questions that I found interesting then that I of course, find interesting now. So, you know, when Mabel was explaining some of the injuries she had, it's because I had done research on these related programs.

00;25;22;15 - 00;25;40;14
Tristan Botelho
You know, in the in the prior years that I was very familiar with the kind of work that was going on, very interdisciplinary, very interested in questions that have both economic but social relevance. These are impactful questions that we've come to study that we were both have been interested in for quite some time.

00;25;40;15 - 00;25;58;28
Tristan Botelho
So for me, it was more about finding the fit with, you know, individuals like looking at faculty at different departments. What were they? What were they studying, where they housed? And, you know, many of them happened to be in management programs, you know, or initial behavior program strategy programs like our field use lots of different names to

00;25;58;28 - 00;26;15;16
Tristan Botelho
mean very similar things. But you know, broadly speaking, that's kind of how I found the fit. But going into it, you know, I never thought of it like quite from that perspective, I thought more like, what are some of the questions that I find interesting, who are studying them and where do they get a Ph.D.?

00;26;16;00 - 00;26;32;05
Tristan Botelho
And it is kind of like a fun rabbit hole to go down because some of them did graduate from business schools and then graduated from more discipline based schools like sociology, economics, psychology. So, you know, there's various pathways for getting to a very similar place.

00;26;33;03 - 00;26;45;04
Tristan Botelho
So that's what I really enjoy about doing. This kind of research at these kinds of programs is that it gives you the license to really try to be as well-rounded as you can in terms of perspectives when answering these questions.

00;26;45;26 - 00;27;06;04
Liz Kay
This is a great way to ask you both about your research and even to ask about some of the collaborations you've done, because I think it looks like you've done some collaborative research projects together and are very curious about what it's like to work with a colleague who is a blood relative that changes the dynamic at all

00;27;06;20 - 00;27;21;04
Tristan Botelho
. Yeah. You know, I guess no offense to my other collaborators, but that was my favorite collaborator for lots of reasons. But you know, one thing that you know is always fun is that we can kind of argue with one another.

00;27;22;14 - 00;27;43;08
Tristan Botelho
She she does tell on me sometimes, so that can get a little annoying. But you know, for the most part, you know, we keep it between between us, which is helpful. But you know, all jokes aside, I think, you know, what's what really drives it to be such a successful partnership is the fact that, you know, we

00;27;43;08 - 00;28;02;00
Tristan Botelho
are really, you know, obsessed with quality and we're obsessed with, you know, kind of not only working hard but having fun while while doing the process. And, you know, we're both lucky to have our coauthors that share many of those same sentiments, of course, but it's always kind of special when you can share with someone that you

00;28;02;00 - 00;28;24;07
Tristan Botelho
know so well that it's made it lots of lots of fun. And I think also funny enough, even with the sibling thing aside, being trained at obviously the same place by similar people, you know, those collaborations also become a little more effortless because you're coming from, you know, a place with similar expectations, similar viewpoints, but also the

00;28;24;07 - 00;28;37;00
Tristan Botelho
diversity of your own thought, right? So it's like you share these commonalities that might make you know how we think about approaching a certain question. Less friction than if you're doing it with someone who, you know, may have been trained an equally good way, but just differently.

00;28;37;00 - 00;28;57;17
Tristan Botelho
So there's lots of, you know, benefits to that. But, you know, I guess I'm working backwards on your question. But you know, broadly speaking, I'm really interested in studying the value of processes. So what that means is, you know, individuals, organizations, you know, it's quite natural that, you know, we're always trying to identify the best of something

00;28;57;17 - 00;29;16;15
Tristan Botelho
, right? The best person to hire the best idea, the best exchange partner. But these things are hard to do. There's lot of uncertainty in them, right? It's hard to hire people. It's hard to, you know, develop a value of processes that are based on quality only because unfortunately, we know lots of things that shouldn't matter do matter

00;29;16;15 - 00;29;35;24
Tristan Botelho
, like race, gender, immigration, status, age, as lots of these counter these characteristics that come into play. So you know what kind of binds my research is, you know, it's like it's two fold and one side of it, you know, I'm really trying to understand, you know, the different mechanisms that lead to biases and these evaluations, you know

00;29;35;24 - 00;29;49;21
Tristan Botelho
, and sometimes these biases are as straightforward as, you know, do women get less attention and other work it's more about like does the evaluation process in and of itself kind of biased things such as just seeing the rating of someone else affect how you yourself rate?

00;29;50;10 - 00;30;05;04
Tristan Botelho
And then another stream of work? I take a very similar approach. Looking at it from more around the context of entrepreneurship and in labor markets to understand careers, you know who gets hired, what happens to former founders, for example, when they go back into the labor market.

00;30;05;04 - 00;30;19;09
Tristan Botelho
So these are some of the other questions that I'm really interested in. And you know, this is the kind of question that I could talk to you about for an hour, but I'll be mindful and kind of stop there and kind of happy to, you know, dove in a little deeper on any of those topics.

00;30;20;26 - 00;30;32;20
Dr. Mabel Abraham
I'd echo I feel like it needs to be said out loud that Christmas is also my favorite collaboration partner, truly, I often have that realization when I work on another project and I'm having a great experience of the person I'm working with.

00;30;32;21 - 00;30;49;02
Dr. Mabel Abraham
I still seek his opinion or still want to know his reactions. But then when we're working together, we feel like it's so synergistic because we have those alignments, but also just take different angles. And how and what we're thinking about that brings a unique perspective to the questions in the work that we do together.

00;30;49;19 - 00;31;05;23
Dr. Mabel Abraham
It's also nice you said that because we can argue, but to elaborate on that a little bit. I think what's really nice about it is that you're not filtered right, like when you're working with a collaborator or even a good friend, there's a filter because we're in a professional environment and we need to sort of be mindful

00;31;05;23 - 00;31;16;24
Dr. Mabel Abraham
of what we say and the person's feelings. It's not that I'm not at all mindful of his feelings, but I also will let him know exactly what I'm thinking at any given moment. It's actually what I think is the most important thing for any sibling.

00;31;16;24 - 00;31;28;28
Dr. Mabel Abraham
To have a productive relationship is not to sort of like hold in things that frustrate you and being able to have those conversations. And we always have work and non-work related. It's always kind of been an open, open book sort of policy with us.

00;31;30;12 - 00;31;48;21
Dr. Mabel Abraham
So the thing I'd say about my research, the work that I do really focuses have largely focused on gender. Up until this point, and I sort of take two different perspectives on understanding gender dynamics. On the one hand, I think a lot about what leads to gender differences in outcomes like why do men and women who are

00;31;48;21 - 00;32;02;16
Dr. Mabel Abraham
otherwise very similar have very different experiences? Why are women disadvantaged in hiring someone context that I look at when the paper that Chris and I have together is why are women and men putting forth the same sort of quality of idea?

00;32;03;00 - 00;32;19;16
Dr. Mabel Abraham
Yet women are not getting as much attention from their peers as men are. And what exactly is driving those differences and the focus of a big body of my research? The other piece that I thought a little bit about is thinking what lead men and women to make different decisions, especially when they're considering jobs.

00;32;20;10 - 00;32;32;22
Dr. Mabel Abraham
So one argument is that the reason why women tend to be missing from some domains, a reason why maybe women are missing from STEM is because they're just not exploring jobs in those areas or they're not pursuing jobs in those areas as much as men.

00;32;33;11 - 00;32;51;19
Dr. Mabel Abraham
So another body of work I try to think about under what conditions do women actually differ? Under what conditions are women less likely to pursue a given job compared to compared to other similar men? So it's we're taking this multidimensional approach to understand that what are people, what are evaluators doing to disadvantage women?

00;32;51;19 - 00;33;10;13
Dr. Mabel Abraham
And then how is that actually affecting women's choices and leading them to make different decisions than men are? So across my research, it's basically about the general space that I'm in. They really try to focus on understanding like what is what the underlying mechanisms of what the underlying drivers of these effects are.

00;33;10;25 - 00;33;22;16
Dr. Mabel Abraham
Because I think what a lot of gender research has done to date is tell us that differences exist, right? No one is surprised to hear that women earn less than men on average. Thing is, if we're going to do something about it, we need to know why.

00;33;23;01 - 00;33;38;26
Dr. Mabel Abraham
Like, why is that the case? What is actually affecting our driving that difference? So I try to sort of take this more like fine-tuned approach to really develop an understanding of what those drivers are with leading to those differences about the whole being that we can then do something about it, right?

00;33;39;01 - 00;33;50;02
Dr. Mabel Abraham
We can, as individuals, do something about our own in our own choices. As organizational leaders and decision makers, we can give people tools to help them design systems that are less biased and that will be more equitable.

00;33;51;08 - 00;34;04;02
Liz Kay
I think you're absolutely right like this. People always make the statement about the various disadvantages that women experience. I'm curious, do you have have in that area where you were looking at, you know, the choices that women make?

00;34;04;02 - 00;34;12;22
Liz Kay
Are you seeing any you have any findings or like what are the results of some of the studies that you've been doing in terms of choices?

00;34;13;10 - 00;34;25;24
Dr. Mabel Abraham
Yeah. So I'll highlight one recent paper that we did that we just published. This is with a collaborator of mine at Columbia, where we basically look at when when there's an identical job posting, the job is the same.

00;34;25;24 - 00;34;40;20
Dr. Mabel Abraham
So it's not that it's not that the job is stem versus a service position that the exact same job. We wanted to understand like what leads men versus women to be attracted to an organization holding the job constant, so to speak.

00;34;41;01 - 00;34;58;16
Dr. Mabel Abraham
And what we find is that women are most interested in jobs at employers that signal fairness and equity. And it's not entirely surprising, right? If it is the case that women have been disadvantaged, we'd expect them to be more sensitized or looking for cues that tell them that working for this employer is going to be a positive

00;34;58;16 - 00;35;13;18
Dr. Mabel Abraham
experience. I'm going to be treated fairly, equitably, not differently from my male counterparts. So we basically find that women women are much more attracted to these companies that have women in leadership and who make clean public statements that they value diversity.

00;35;14;18 - 00;35;35;08
Dr. Mabel Abraham
Men, on the other hand, are most interested or most attracted to jobs at companies that focus on what they do to drive the business, how they drive performance and who are led by men. And it's not necessarily that they're just favoring male led companies, it's that they're just no more interested when the company is signaling fairness because

00;35;35;08 - 00;35;48;27
Dr. Mabel Abraham
they're just less sensitized to that. It's not. It's not just a preference for it's not that men just prefer working for men, it's that they prefer working for men and they don't mind working for women. Kind of the same, but they're not picking up on these issues about fairness.

00;35;49;21 - 00;35;51;15
Dr. Mabel Abraham
Where women are much more sensitized.

00;35;52;13 - 00;36;11;03
Liz Kay
So I'm curious. Earlier in our conversation, you mentioned how your first gen experience kind of colored colored your experience all the way through your doctoral experience, and I kind of want to pose that question to you both. If you could think of any examples as you were first gen students, as doctoral students as well.

00;36;11;24 - 00;36;21;18
Liz Kay
And if you could think of any anecdotes or times where you kind of like that Kathleen class example where you felt like you had a light bulb go off, oh wow, this is different from me.

00;36;22;03 - 00;36;43;17
Dr. Mabel Abraham
Yeah, I know. For me, I remember the first week first semester being in grad school and for the first time realizing that everyone else in the room. Maybe it wasn't actually everyone else, but it certainly felt like everyone else had read rigorous academic research before and just understood things like the structure of the arguments and how these

00;36;43;17 - 00;37;00;18
Dr. Mabel Abraham
papers were, formulate formula formulas and the kinds of journals that we should be thinking about. Whereas I remember reading my first academic paper and literally having no idea what exactly why things were laid out the way that they were, or some of the language that was even being used to like, I don't have to look up some

00;37;00;18 - 00;37;11;04
Dr. Mabel Abraham
of these words. I don't know what this means. And I remember talking to some of my colleagues who had gone to Ivy League undergraduate institutions had parents who were professors, and it was it was more second nature to them.

00;37;11;04 - 00;37;24;20
Dr. Mabel Abraham
It's not that it wasn't hard. Everyone was learning and entering this new field. But there was a baseline level of understanding about what it meant to do social science research and what it meant to publish in high caliber, rigorous journals.

00;37;24;29 - 00;37;42;10
Dr. Mabel Abraham
That felt like a foreign language to me, to be completely honest. And I remember being quite inhibiting because I was very reluctant to speak up. And this is something that actually I can. I have a very similar experience at P.S. early on as well, where I think that the bar to feel like I could raise my hand

00;37;42;10 - 00;37;53;24
Dr. Mabel Abraham
and say something felt very, very high. And very often even somebody would make a comment or ask a question that I had been thinking about. But I wouldn't sort of bring myself to speaking up because I felt unsure.

00;37;54;03 - 00;38;07;02
Dr. Mabel Abraham
I felt I was probably the only one in the room who didn't know that. And and I think some of that exists for everybody, right? So I think as a first year Ph.D. student, there's some level of anxiety of not talk to my peers about this exhaustively.

00;38;07;29 - 00;38;22;14
Dr. Mabel Abraham
But the bar was just a little bit higher. It took a little bit more for me to ask. I spent a few more hours reading. Every time that we hit, we had an assignment. I revise and edited and kind of went through my work before submitting it that much more like the effort, which is higher at every

00;38;22;14 - 00;38;30;27
Dr. Mabel Abraham
turn, partly because of insecurity and partly because of actual lack of knowledge, not having had exposure to some of those things before entering grad school.

00;38;31;20 - 00;38;50;00
Tristan Botelho
Yeah. So I think, you know, I echo a lot of that. I think that grad school, for many people, especially at the doctor doctoral level at a place like MIT is, you know, an ice bath, right? It's a lie.

00;38;50;00 - 00;39;05;20
Tristan Botelho
They expect a lot from the get go. And most people, I think, share a lot of those those feelings, and I think few people are willing to fake it. Sorry, more people are willing to fake it than to admit that they also feel that way.

00;39;05;20 - 00;39;22;00
Tristan Botelho
And that's something I didn't learn until later on towards graduation, where we were like, Yeah, I didn't get what's going on either. I think what was most surprising to me is, I remember, you know, there's this, you know, math camp that you that you go to.

00;39;22;00 - 00;39;39;28
Tristan Botelho
That's that was hosted by the economics of the Ph.D. economics program, which is usually it's much bigger than a business school program. So they are they admit something in the order of like 2030 people. Business schools across all the programs, you know, might admit something like ten to twelve.

00;39;41;22 - 00;39;54;11
Tristan Botelho
So there is maybe, you know, most people go, so let's say there's 30,000 people in the room. And so I hadn't met anyone yet. I sit down kind of just randomly and it happened to be someone else who would be a cohort, me and some others as well.

00;39;54;17 - 00;40;10;25
Tristan Botelho
And they were discussing kind of, you know, this commonality of having parents and faculty members. And that, I think is still one of the most stark things for me is that I meet so many colleagues that won't offer it up because no reason just to say, Oh yeah, my dad's a professor.

00;40;11;03 - 00;40;24;09
Tristan Botelho
Well, once you get to know them, you realize that their parents are professors, both sometimes just one. And it's so much more common than I ever expected to. The point that, you know, I think it was the time to forget who wrote this.

00;40;24;18 - 00;40;37;16
Tristan Botelho
This list of the professions that are most likely to trickle down throughout a family and being a faculty member is one of them. And it makes sense. It's like it's a rewarding career. It's a lot of fun. It's challenging.

00;40;37;16 - 00;40;47;19
Tristan Botelho
So I could see if you saw your parent do it, you know, even my six year old jokes around, I went to the parent, you know, curriculum night the other night, and one of the things you wrote that you want to be a horseback rider and a professor.

00;40;48;26 - 00;41;03;20
Tristan Botelho
Maybe simultaneously, who knows? So like, I think you see the stuff you think it's a lot of fun, right? And it's really interesting. So I'm not surprised that it happens and good for it and good for them because I think like, you know, I do laugh at both of our all of our kids, you know, growing up

00;41;03;20 - 00;41;12;11
Tristan Botelho
on a college campus, it's cool to get to run around the green. She calls it her campus. And, you know, it's a fun thing to see. So I can imagine just that alone would be enough to want to do it.

00;41;12;18 - 00;41;23;04
Tristan Botelho
But like, I think that's the most stark thing is that coming from, you know, an extended family where, you know, by the time I graduated, still only a handful of people had gone to college across the entire family.

00;41;23;10 - 00;41;41;15
Tristan Botelho
To these people talking about, like their parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles, all who are professors. It was just like, Oh, wow, so this is like a whole new level of thing going on. So again, like no one, no one talked about it in a strange way or like like the advantages it confers.

00;41;41;19 - 00;41;56;25
Tristan Botelho
You know, sometimes there are more obvious than others, but it was just something that I think was my way of my own. Background was just surprising. But. But yes, so that's I guess that's what I would add to that discussion.

00;41;57;04 - 00;42;11;10
Dr. Mabel Abraham
It's funny just I know you've had this experience, too. It's one of my favorites. I'm very open and proud to share my background, so I'm sort of I'll share anything. I open up every so every semester that I teach are MBA and students.

00;42;11;10 - 00;42;26;22
Dr. Mabel Abraham
I open up by sharing this fact about myself, and I do that for a number of reasons. I do it because often you don't know that there's someone else who who can relate to you and understand what it means to have the unique set of challenges and the unique set of rewards that come with being a first

00;42;26;22 - 00;42;43;24
Dr. Mabel Abraham
generation college student. It's amazing to when you kind of go down this path and you're happy with what your outcome, happy with where you land, wherever that may be. It's extremely rewarding because you feel like you've earned something above and beyond just the degree because you navigated this path and had to sort of trend to this path

00;42;43;26 - 00;42;54;11
Dr. Mabel Abraham
in some ways. But what I was going to say is one of my favorite things is when people find out they were both siblings and they were both. They were both academics, especially people in our field who haven't sort of met both of us.

00;42;55;06 - 00;43;05;02
Dr. Mabel Abraham
It's starting to become less common now that more people know us than recognize the sibling relationship. But it used to be the case where they say, like, Oh, you're so and so's your brother or you guys are siblings.

00;43;05;11 - 00;43;16;05
Dr. Mabel Abraham
Your parents must be professors. And it's actually really fun to get to respond and say, No, actually, I have a great story. We're first in a first generation college students and my dad worked two jobs and give kind of the backstory on that.

00;43;17;00 - 00;43;26;24
Dr. Mabel Abraham
And it's enlightening, I think, because the baseline expectation is most people have a family member who's a professor. If there are two of you, certainly your parents must be professors, right?

00;43;27;03 - 00;43;38;13
Tristan Botelho
That's obviously not the case. Yeah, I know that that is good. I've run into that a lot, too. And I think it is important to people's point. I always bring up that fact about myself for various reasons. You know, first and foremost, I'm I'm proud of it.

00;43;39;16 - 00;43;57;28
Tristan Botelho
I think that we should all celebrate our differences because by doing that, we can create more inclusivity, by being honest about, you know, the the hardships that we deal with, the fun things like, I think that really helps people relate to you, which is one of the reasons that I do it.

00;43;57;28 - 00;44;15;15
Tristan Botelho
And also because, you know, talking to someone the other day and we're talking about being a first gen student and, you know, they said that it's interesting, right? If you think about one or two generations removed from us, like my parents or my grandparents, you know, claiming that your first gen student and other generations is like, Yeah

00;44;15;15 - 00;44;32;09
Tristan Botelho
, a lot of most people are, you know, as you go back, it becomes more and more common. But it's interesting and, you know, dealing with the undergrads. And now that I deal with them too often because I mostly teach MBAs, but I've done some kind of service work more generally, and it seems to be like so much

00;44;32;09 - 00;44;48;21
Tristan Botelho
more of a rare thing that you can be, you know, not that I'm in the same generation as an incoming undergrad, but you know, closer to them than my parents' generation. And it's just that that's something that I feel in the room.

00;44;48;21 - 00;45;03;18
Tristan Botelho
They might, you know, they obviously know this about themselves. They might have some questions. And I found that every time I share, I always have a few people come up to me after, like thanking me for sharing that and asking questions about certain things that I've dealt with, how I should be thinking, how they should be thinking

00;45;03;18 - 00;45;21;16
Tristan Botelho
about certain things. So I think it's a really important thing to talk about out loud just because, you know, it's a different viewpoint of the world, I think, you know, uniquely to us. Not only are, you know, are we first generation college students, but also being the children of immigrants?

00;45;22;05 - 00;45;36;21
Tristan Botelho
It's something that is very unique. You, you see things and you've dealt with things a little differently and by, you know, making that connection to people and, you know, helping them even like a small way is something that's always been very important to to me.

00;45;36;21 - 00;45;50;13
Tristan Botelho
And I know to Mabel just because again, along the way, lots of people sacrificed their time and their effort to to help. So that's something I think is important because you can't tell just by looking at either of us, you know that that's true.

00;45;51;03 - 00;46;02;25
Tristan Botelho
And therefore people usually don't share that maybe about themselves, especially they feel some imposter syndrome that you can imagine being a Yale undergrad and then you yourself. I'm not going to tell anybody this about me because it's hard enough to be here as it is.

00;46;03;15 - 00;46;08;21
Tristan Botelho
So, you know, I know that that's been appreciated and I always appreciate, you know, staying in touch and talking with those students.

00;46;09;24 - 00;46;31;16
Liz Kay
So PC now has a formal program to help support students who are first generation students PC one G, and there are mentors and advisors who can help students like through examples that some of the situations that you just described when you think back to your own experiences, where the particular people, the faculty or staff, or even experiences

00;46;31;16 - 00;46;36;00
Liz Kay
or programs that that help you, even if they weren't formally for first generation students per se.

00;46;36;15 - 00;46;53;11
Dr. Mabel Abraham
Are just going to say, I think that the emergence of programs formal programs is relatively new, not just a PC, but just in general. They've definitely become popularized. I think that everything that any one of us does is an expression to use like we're standing on the shoulders of giants, right?

00;46;53;17 - 00;47;09;26
Dr. Mabel Abraham
We're sort of getting supported by everybody along the way, from direct support to indirect support. Anybody who claims they've done anything on their own is not telling a full truth because we don't do anything on our own. I feel like as a first generation college student, that's just magnified in a lot of ways.

00;47;10;07 - 00;47;22;17
Dr. Mabel Abraham
And I think people often don't realize the way that they help. So sometimes it's having a conversation where somewhere someone is in tune enough to recognize that what you need is social support and offering an ear and saying, you know, you're dealing with this challenge.

00;47;22;17 - 00;47;39;10
Dr. Mabel Abraham
Let me help you navigate this. And I can think of so many examples. I mean, from as an undergrad relying on friends and being able to be open with classmates and roommates while I was there in graduate school having advisors where even when there was a family hardship or challenges I was facing, I remember my advisor and

00;47;39;10 - 00;47;47;25
Dr. Mabel Abraham
my team, Roberto saying, I'm a full service professor. And it was like, You don't just come to me when you're having a problem that has to do with the research, come to me when I can help you with anything.

00;47;47;25 - 00;48;03;05
Dr. Mabel Abraham
And he willing to prove that to be the case over and over again. So I think the reality is. Recognizing that people are there to support you and seeking that out, because often we don't want to ask for help, and it's part of why I think both Chris and I share about this background is to help other

00;48;03;05 - 00;48;19;09
Dr. Mabel Abraham
people feel like, you know, it's OK. It's not something to be ashamed of. It's actually something to be proud of. And how can you make that known and make your needs known more generally? Because I think a challenged first generation students faced again thinking about imposter syndrome, for example, is that you don't want to ask for help

00;48;19;10 - 00;48;34;15
Dr. Mabel Abraham
. I think they're less likely to ask for help than our other people because they already feel potentially inadequate or underprepared. And there's more concern about how is it going to reflect on me if I need to ask for this or if I ask this question in class, what's going to be part of me?

00;48;34;21 - 00;48;48;20
Dr. Mabel Abraham
Because I'm the one who doesn't know who doesn't come in with the right knowledge? I think debunking that and any anybody who is able to help debunk that for the students is the most effective thing. It doesn't take huge moves like you don't move mountains to help students, right?

00;48;48;21 - 00;48;59;24
Dr. Mabel Abraham
It's just small things like helping them feel like they can speak up, giving them a voice and identifying those small cues that tell you that somebody needs support. When I think about examples in my life that were most helpful, there was usually things like that.

00;48;59;24 - 00;49;12;05
Dr. Mabel Abraham
It was just small gestures and saying, you know, it seems like you were having a hard day today, like, what's going on? Or can I help you with something? Those were usually the most impactful moments, more than anything concrete or sort of larger scale.

00;49;13;00 - 00;49;31;10
Tristan Botelho
Yeah. So I think for me, it's like there's been, you know, an uncountable number of people who who have helped and offered guidance and reacted to, you know, half baked ideas or thoughts or dreams or what have you along the way.

00;49;32;08 - 00;49;47;12
Tristan Botelho
And outside of PC, I'm I, you know, I'm supportive of formal programing only because I think one of the challenges that many groups face is you don't know what you don't know. Right. So I think oftentimes you can get really good reactive advice.

00;49;47;13 - 00;50;06;29
Tristan Botelho
So for example, when I ask people about graduate school or banking or about this or that other thing, they had opinions on it. But I think what I struggled with was I just hadn't seen lots of things play out like I didn't know, coming in to school, for example, when the banking recruiting cycle was in, the consulting

00;50;06;29 - 00;50;21;29
Tristan Botelho
recruiting cycle was like, what was the Super Saturday? Like all these things that lots of kids just know, like, Oh yeah, this is what it is like, this is how you think about it. So oftentimes I found myself, you know, not realizing I didn't know something until it was too late to know it or reacting to something

00;50;21;29 - 00;50;39;04
Tristan Botelho
that, you know would have been nice. Maybe maybe to have known a little earlier, you know, in the career. So I think this with this form of programing can do is that, you know, especially if it's done, you know, done well is if you know that a student you know is interested in X or Y is instead

00;50;39;04 - 00;50;50;00
Tristan Botelho
of giving them the high level, I'm assuming, you know, something approach starting from, you know, base facts and saying, Well, you know, let me explain to you like you've never heard this before. This is how this process works.

00;50;50;04 - 00;51;04;16
Tristan Botelho
These are the players involved. This is the timeline, et cetera, like the programing is working in that way. I think it's really, really helpful because it's filling in these gaps that often come from just seeing in the real world, even even if you're learning through osmosis, right?

00;51;04;16 - 00;51;18;01
Tristan Botelho
Not like these people are taught at twelve years old what it means to do A or B, but instead they see it in their in their kind of lived experience, and that allows them when they're 4 million their own opinions to have this background knowledge.

00;51;18;07 - 00;51;32;10
Tristan Botelho
So that's what I'm hoping. You know, I don't know much about this program. Besides the fact that they had one courses on some newsletter that I read a while back, but that's what I'm hoping is coming from this programing is really trying to kind of fill in those gaps.

00;51;32;17 - 00;51;45;13
Liz Kay
I know about the program because I'm a mentor and I do serve as one as part of that team, but it's a pretty robust program to help answer the needs of the growing number of students who identify this way, which is which is great.

00;51;46;22 - 00;52;03;17
Liz Kay
So this year, the college is also celebrating 50 years of women, the 50th anniversary of women enrolling as undergraduates. And to celebrate, we're honoring achievements of women, faculty, students and alumni. But we're also asking everyone who comes on the podcast all the women who come on the podcast.

00;52;03;17 - 00;52;08;04
Liz Kay
Mabel, do you think your gender affected your experience at Providence College and if so, how?

00;52;09;05 - 00;52;24;13
Dr. Mabel Abraham
Yeah. So it's an interesting it's an interesting question, I feel like whether you identify as male or female, you're gender shapes how you experience everything, right? It's sort of like this baseline identity that you have that just orient your you're thinking about.

00;52;24;13 - 00;52;37;16
Dr. Mabel Abraham
Like, what do people like me do? So you even even if it's not overt, or if it's not like the institution or the job or the school affecting you directly, you know that women tend to do things like X, and men tend to do things like Y.

00;52;37;16 - 00;52;48;14
Dr. Mabel Abraham
If you come in with these priors about what is the right field for a woman to go into, one of the first moments I remember thinking about my gender was when I decided to switch from science to math.

00;52;49;02 - 00;53;04;29
Dr. Mabel Abraham
And it was interesting because in my science classes, it was pretty balance actually male, female, and I now think about it. I think it's because people taking the biology courses, for example, include people who are going to go into veterinary science and fields that are actually more female dominated.

00;53;05;18 - 00;53;18;17
Dr. Mabel Abraham
When I went into my math classes, however, it was almost all male. It were very, very few women, so much so that a couple of us who ended up in these, like advanced math classes toward the end of the program became good friends because there were just a couple of us.

00;53;19;18 - 00;53;32;10
Dr. Mabel Abraham
So I do think that it was my first lens into how we can feel very challenging. I was talking about how it sometimes feels hard to ask questions or to speak up. I think that's magnified even more when you're one of the few like you in the room.

00;53;32;25 - 00;53;48;03
Dr. Mabel Abraham
So I repeatedly have that experience where in my math classes, I felt like the men were tended to be louder and more vocal and more willing to contribute. And it sort of made it even more difficult for the women who maybe felt a little more insecure and were in the minority just to have their opinions be heard

00;53;48;25 - 00;54;03;16
Dr. Mabel Abraham
. I always respected and liked the professors who picked up on that, and it was very clear that they picked up on that by cold calling and kind of forcing you to speak up, which can be uncomfortable. But it also just put you in a position where you didn't have to have that filter or do all of that

00;54;03;16 - 00;54;19;15
Dr. Mabel Abraham
processing. You were then the one who was being asked for the answer, and that was really helpful. So I think that that's why I think that the most sort of pronounced way for me in that kind of shapes how what the research is that I do now is the consideration of it really have an impact on you

00;54;19;15 - 00;54;34;14
Dr. Mabel Abraham
when you're in a field or in an area or in a class where you're in the gender minority. And I think that parallel there is if you're in the racial minority, a similar experience, I would imagine. And it sort of has shaped my research in thinking about, well, then we really need to understand what leads women to

00;54;34;14 - 00;54;50;08
Dr. Mabel Abraham
be in different fields and how to inequities manifest differently when you're in an area like in finance as opposed to in the humanities. How do these inequities differ across these different fields? Because there's something about the numerical representation that definitely is a factor.

00;54;50;18 - 00;54;55;16
Liz Kay
Mabel interesting. It really has been a pleasure talking to you. Thank you so much for joining us.

00;54;55;22 - 00;54;56;19
Tristan Botelho
Thank you for having us.

00;54;56;28 - 00;54;58;16
Dr. Mabel Abraham
Thank you for having us. I really enjoyed it.

00;54;59;01 - 00;55;11;21
Liz Kay
Thank you for joining us for a final podcast in 2021. Episodes are available in all the usual places, as well as the college's YouTube channel and on your smart speaker with producer Chris Judge timeless. Until next time.