Jehan Idsassi

I attribute my success first and foremost to God I am a big believer in faith, and I would not be here without the support and guidance that He's been able to give me. Second, I would say definitely my family, but my mother in particular. I'm very close with her, and she's always been there to support me throughout my entire journey. I've never had a moment where my family has never been there for me, and I'm very fortunate for this to be the case. I also have to credit my culture - I'm from Morocco, culturally speaking, and I'm also Amazigh, which means I'm indigenous to the lands of Morocco and the Maghrib region across North Africa. My culture has really provided so much support, and whenever I look at all my family members who live in Morocco and even those who live here in the US and across the world, it always gives me so much motivation to know that you can start your life from zero, from the ground up, and still be successful. You can still be a minority and still succeed in whatever you're doing, and as long as you have that community supporting you, you'll be able to accomplish that. And then obviously, mentors have been key in my journey as well.

The best career advice I've received, which I hear from a lot of my mentors like professors and principal investigators of labs, comes in three parts that all go hand in hand. Number one, be genuine and passionate. Number two, quality over quantity - that's a big one. And number three, stay true to yourself. Having passion for what you're doing is literally going to be the driving force that you're going to wake up to every day. If you have the opportunity to pursue something that you genuinely love and you're passionate about, and you have access to resources to succeed in that, then you should do it solely for that reason. When you stay true to yourself and you always prioritize quality of your work versus how much work you're doing, you'll see the results. I found that when I stretch myself too thin, it just doesn't end up well, so I always require balance in everything I do. In time, you'll see the results that you worked very hard for.

My advice is to look for spaces that are supportive of you and that deliberately give you resources to succeed. It's all about the community that you surround yourself with. I always made sure to go into cultural clubs that supported my cultural background and made me feel like there were other students on campus who understood me. When it came to STEM in particular, I exhausted every resource I had because many of the opportunities I've had in my advocacy career and in college have been through my own research since high school. The biggest thing I can advise is be that kind of cheerleader for yourself and make sure that you look for as many opportunities, but also seek help when needed. Don't be afraid to ask for help, whether that's a question or you need mentorship. I would not be where I am today without the mentors that I've had throughout my science journey and academic career. Being confident in yourself that you can find these opportunities and find spaces that welcome you and are going to help you is very important. But at the same time, you also must be able to ask for help when necessary, and it is not shameful to do so either. In fact, I believe asking for help is a sign of intellectual curiosity - you want to know more, you want to figure out why this was wrong, why something didn't happen according to your plan. All of these are ways to enhance your intellectual thoughts.

In terms of challenges within STEM Up, definitely the administrative tasks of working with the leadership team, because we've just finished expanding our team to 16 members. One member is in Morocco and a few members are in different institutions here in the US, so we're kind of split apart, and it's challenging communication-wise to make sure everyone is doing their tasks while also giving them leniency and helping guide them. Coordinating the chapter that we're launching at the University of Maryland College Park has also been challenging because people are on summer break and it's hard to coordinate a time to meet. In terms of really broad logistical things, it's definitely navigating the nonprofit registration process. In terms of education, the courses I'm taking like organic chemistry are very difficult - that was the hardest class I've ever taken. The challenging part is doing these classes but also continuously having the motivation to continue to succeed and never give up. I've had many times where I'm like, am I just not good enough for this? Is organic chemistry going to stop me forever? But thankfully, I was able to succeed in it and do well. These challenges are inevitable, but what motivates me is that I have girls who look up to me, not only at my local mosque who think I'm a scientist, but who want me to succeed, and I don't want to let them down. I want them to have a role model to look up to.

The values that are very important to me in my work and personal life are definitely quality over quantity in anything. I was born in a household and in a religion and culture where if I'm going to do something, I must succeed fully in what I'm doing as much as I can. I've been in situations where I've stretched myself too thin, and I found that when I do so much at once, I kind of lost purpose of who I was and what was my real mission here. That can very much happen if you're just stuck on the glamour part of all of this - the advocacy, the features, and so on. So I really try to stray away from that, and even if I do approach that field, I do it in a way where it's in a healthy boundary. I know this is why I'm here to do it, and this is the work I'm going to publish. If someone wants to accept me for who I am and my background, then that's perfectly fine, and if they don't, then that's also okay as well. It's all about being understanding to the people in my personal life as well as to those I work with in my educational and professional career.