Finding mentorship through PRYDE

Patrick Crossen, PRYDE Scholar

One of the biggest problems I had coming to Cornell was doubt. I questioned whether or not I could keep up with the drive, tenacity, and excellence of my classmates. I think this doubt was even greater because I no longer had the support system I had while in high school. I moved away from my hometown and as a result it was difficult to lean on my family, teachers, and friends for support.

As I progressed through my early years of college, I gradually felt this doubt disappear. I became more confident in myself and my abilities. I made great friends that I have since been able to rely on during hard times. Despite this, I still felt like I had not been able to develop strong relationships with my professors.

When I take a class, it is very rare for me to ever directly talk to a professor. I regularly go to class, I take notes, and then I leave. This is about as much “interaction” as I have with my professors. This made me feel like I was missing out on a lot of the opportunities that Cornell had to offer as I was not able to actively take advantage of the expertise that the professors had. This desire to develop a mentoring relationship with professors is one of the reasons I ended up applying to the PRYDE Scholars program. Since joining PRYDE, I have not only been able to develop this kind of relationship, but it has allowed me to develop critical skills that I know I will be able to apply to my career after college.

This year I have been working with my faculty mentor Tony Burrow on a project with Eve DeRosa, Adam Anderson, and three other PRYDE Scholars. We are working with the Syracuse Academy of Science and developing brain education interventions for grades K-4. These brain interventions are being used to evaluate how the development of a growth mindset or purpose in life will impact students’ academic achievements as well as socioemotional development.

Working on this project has not only allowed me to develop relationships with the professors involved in this project, but it has also been instrumental in shaping myself as a researcher. Our project is set up in a way that gives us, as PRYDE Scholars, a lot of freedom to take an active role in developing the neuroscience lesson plans. When beginning the process of developing these interventions, the undergraduate students on the project are given the opportunity to present what we think we should do for the intervention. The professors then provide feedback and the interventions are modified accordingly. This experience has been transformative in my educational journey because it has allowed me to be able to present my own ideas on a project and be able to receive constructive feedback on these ideas. That process has allowed me to refine my research skills by actually being the one to develop the project.

At first, I was extremely apprehensive about being involved in the design of the interventions because I was unsure if I had the skills to successfully integrate the basic concepts of purpose and growth mindset into our neuroscience lessons. However, because of the collaborative and supportive environment in our research group, I was able to think more critically about research design and gain a more refined understanding of purpose in life and growth mindset. I truly value this sort of mentorship as I know it is will help me be able to develop my own community-based research projects in the future.