Amy-Ann Edziah

“During the college application process, LEEP pushed me to apply to colleges that I thought were out of my reach and encouraged me to pursue opportunities I perceived myself to be unqualified for. Overall, I think that LEEP’s biggest impact in preparing me for college was that it taught me to go outside of my comfort zone.”
-Amy-Ann, NJ LEEP Class of 2018, Swarthmore College Class of 2022, Clinical Research Coordinator at the Scheie Eye Institute at Penn Medicine on the Primary Open-Angle African-American Glaucoma Genetics (POAAGG) study

Where I am today…

My time in college was much different than I imagined it would be, but I learned and grew both personally and in my academic interests. From attending my classes virtually during a pandemic, to helping to organize an academic strike in the height of a period of racial unrest and online learning, I can say that college brought a lot of surprises and challenged me in unexpected ways. I graduated from Swarthmore College in May where I special majored in Biology and Education and minored in Gender and Sexuality Studies. I was also a pre-medical student and I am on the path to medical school.

I currently live in Philadelphia and work as a Clinical Research Coordinator at the Scheie Eye Institute at Penn Medicine on the Primary Open-Angle African-American Glaucoma Genetics (POAAGG) study, which primarily studies the genetic contributors to people of African Ancestry experiencing more severe glaucoma. As part of my job, I help manage various clinical projects, recruit patients, and write research papers. Outside of work, I am studying for the MCAT and have recently joined working groups at the Institute for Healing and Justice in Medicine (IHJM), which advocates against race-based discrimination in medicine. I am also enjoying exploring the city with my friends. 

Academics 

I had always really enjoyed biology as a subject and planned to major in biology before I even arrived at college. But despite my initial assuredness, my biology courses were extremely challenging for me and I actually considered dropping the major a few times. Using resources such as office hours, tutors, and peer support groups was crucial for allowing me to persist in the major.

My struggles and those of many of my friends from marginalized educational backgrounds in biology signaled to me the importance of having students like myself being represented in decisions about curriculum and in student support spaces.

I decided to become a TA for one of the intro courses, and for 2 semesters, I was able to help students learn concepts but also show them that it was ok to struggle. I was also able to regularly give feedback to the instructors of the course and actively influence how the course was taught based on my interactions with students. All in all, it was one the best experiences I had as a bio major and enabled me to work towards improving bio for other marginalized students.

Majoring in education was not a plan of mine, but after taking the first-year seminar “Intro to Education” I realized that my experiences as a low-income, public school student in Newark also fueled my interest in educational equity and curriculum development.

Apart from the fact that the professors I met in the Ed department were some of the best I had throughout my college career, I really enjoyed the wide range of courses I was able to take such as Black Ed and Urban Ed that gave more nuanced perspectives of the American education system. When I learned that special majors were possible, I knew that I wanted to combine my interests in biology and educational equity in the bio/ed special major. In the Spring of my senior year, I completed my senior thesis in the special major titled "Affirmations From “Home”: The Role of Relational Counterspaces in the Success of Underrepresented Minority Undergraduates in STEM”. In it, I was able to reflect on the counterspaces or the people and places outside of the traditionally white-centered spaces of STEM that were important to my success as a Black woman is STEM. I was also able to speak to alumni about their experiences and make suggestions to the bio department about ways they can better support marginalized students. 

Studying gender and sexuality was especially important and interesting to me, because as a future physician, I know that many healthcare disparities exist at the intersection of race, gender, and sexuality. I had many great academic experiences in my study of gender and sexuality, my most memorable being creating my video project “love me, feel me, be me” for my capstone class. In it, I was able to reflect on and showcase how Black women reclaim their humanity through self-care rituals. 

Professional

I am glad to have had diverse professional and co-curricular experiences during my time in college. During the winter of my freshman year, excited to explore my new interest in education, I participated in a week-long externship with an alum in the Philly public school district who is a biology curriculum development specialist. I visited schools for teacher development workshops and watched the district science fair come together. I also had an education-focused experience that summer as a college writing class TA at NJ LEEP. Returning to NJ LEEP was a great full-circle experience and I was grateful to be able to assist the students who were about to go through a process I had just gone through. In my remaining summers, I decided to pursue research in both education and biology. In my 2nd year, I participated in a research project conducted by one of my Ed professors that examined how Jim Crow laws may have influenced current policy on school funding in Philadelphia. In my 3rd year, I conducted research with a Bio professor of mine where we studied how implants of estradiol would change how male lizards perceived female lizards. These 2 research experiences were very different and for me represent how I was able to pivot between my various interests in college through the support of my professors. They also taught me that there were different things that I appreciated about both qualitative and experimental research, which has really informed my future career goals.

Throughout the academic semesters, I also worked as a campus tour guide and biology teaching assistant. In my senior year, I also had the opportunity to work as an associate at the Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility on campus. In my role, I advised students on how to find socially engaged internships in the "identity and inequalities” and “science and society” issue areas and helped review their grant applications. I also worked on a project to help make faculty research more accessible to students and on a project to help low-income students learn about the center’s internship funding. This role was really fulfilling for me because I was able to talk to students about their passions and help low-income students learn about ways to fund their experiences. Finally, I also worked as a Resident Assistant in my senior year which was difficult but also rewarding. Making connections with my residents and helping address issues in my community taught me a lot about my capacity to deal with uncomfortable but important topics. 

Extracurriculars 

Coming into college, like most people, I wanted to try everything. I joined a bunch of different groups but only had the capacity to participate in a few. During my time in college, I sang in the chorus, was a member of the African and African-American student associations, participated in the Questbridge and Swatties for Immigrant Rights groups, and danced in an African dance group. I also volunteered as an international student orientation leader, a prospective student overnight host, and at a local hospice visiting patients. Most close to my heart is the time I spent as member and president of NatroKnots, the natural hair club. Inheriting the newly-created club and watching it grow and be able to serve its members better every semester was a huge source of joy for me. As a club, we held meetings where we talked about various Black hair topics, gave out free products (including care packages during COVID), and were another space for Black students to gather. It really allowed me to improve the lives of Black students on campus and I was really honored to receive a special recognition from the Black Cultural Center for this work upon my graduation.

Finally, an extracurricular activity that was also important to my academic success was my participation in the Richard Rubin Mentorship program. My mentor, a chemistry professor who strongly supported me through her intro class my first semester, was one of my biggest cheerleaders throughout the 4 years she was my mentor in the program. Her support and the support of my fellow mentees continues to be very special to me.

NJ LEEP’s Impact 

NJ LEEP helped prepare me for college academically and personally. Academically, NJ LEEP improved my writing ability and my confidence in it. The practice of writing multiple drafts of Saturday writing class essays and constitutional law debate briefs helped me develop editing skills that I used throughout college. Through LEEP, I also got to practice doing a lot of reading at once which was a component of many of my classes. LEEP also taught me the importance of community and seeking help. Being encouraged to ask for help and receiving constant support throughout my time in the program made me much more comfortable than most first-year students are asking for help. In the first few weeks of class, I was often the only student in my professors’ office hours which helped me form connections with them that served me for the rest of the semester. The public speaking and interview skills I developed throughout my time in LEEP helped me in the many presentations and interviews I did throughout college. The career-oriented programming I attended as part of the CSS program, such as LinkedIn workshops and career fairs, helped build those skills further and were especially important during my post-grad job search.

In the college application process, LEEP really pushed me to apply to colleges that I thought were out of my reach and encouraged me to pursue opportunities I perceived myself to be unqualified for. Overall, I think that LEEP’s biggest impact in preparing me for college was that it had taught me to go outside of my comfort zone.