Access to Advancement, Part 2: Christine Sangobowale
Allison Dunne: I met Christine Sangobowale during her lunch break. She was just a few weeks into her new job, at Pfizer.
Christine Sangobowale: I felt this would be a great opportunity for me to get to know a different side of science.
Allison Dunne: She means a different side to environmental science, for which she is pursuing her master's at Adelphi University, in Garden City, New York, not far from New York City, where she lives. So, it's work by day, and grad school some evenings.
Christine did not always want to pursue environmental science. She says a summer internship during college is what steered her in this direction.
Christine Sangobowale: When I first started out in college, my interest was working as a biologist for a pharmaceutical company. And then, as I continued going down the line, I wanted to do pharmaceutical law, and I had applied for an internship, and I didn't get the internship; but I did get the internship for environmental science. So I decided, well, I'm gonna go do the internship for environmental science, and it turned out that I really loved it, and it was something that I was really passionate about. So that sort of changed the way I saw things and the way I thought about things.
Allison Dunne: She found out about the internship during her sophomore year at Poughkeepsie, New York-based Marist College.
Christine Sangobowale: We had, um, the Office for Students with Disabilities, and I was a part of the organization because I just needed someone- like, my disability is a hidden disability. It's not something that can sidetrack me, but I do have bad days where I can't, you know, come to class. So I signed up so that I could get a note-taker for the days that I did miss class, to take notes for me. And since my GPA and everything else was pretty good, um, my counselor at school suggested that I apply to Entry Point!
Allison Dunne: Christine, who lives in the Bronx, said the Entry Point! internship was hands down, the best experience of her life. Her internship had her working for the U.S. government, for NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Christine worked in NOAA Fisheries, in Gloucester, Massachusetts, researching fish catch relating to over-fishing.
Entry Point! is an internship program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and is for college students with disabilities in STEM, or science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
Not only did the actual internship steer her into environmental science, but something during the internship cemented her calling.
Christine Sangobowale: But the thing that actually got me interested in environmental law was, what they, NOAA would do is, every Friday we would have seminars with all the interns so you could see what other people in NOAA do. And there was an environmental lawyer that came, and she gave a talk on what she does and what her role is in the whole NOAA family. And I was completely sold. I was like blown away, my mind, my whole life, I was like, this is what I'm supposed to do.
Allison Dunne: Despite her new job at Pfizer, Christine says she is sticking with her plans to attend law school.
Christine has sickle cell anemia, a type of sickle cell disease: an inherited blood disorder that affects red blood cells. Symptoms include episodes of pain, and fatigue.
Christine Sangobowale: When I was younger, I was really affected. I was always in the hospital. I would miss school a lot, and I would just be, I would feel like everyone else is in school learning, and I'm sitting here sick. And I would just feel bad, and I would feel, I don't want to say guilt, but it's similar to that, really, when you feel like, you know, I feel guilty because my parents had to miss work to be here with me. I just felt, my goal in life is to make myself better, my body better, so that I wouldn't have to deal with this again. So I just, I was very mindful of my diet, I did exercise, and I noticed that the more that I worked at it, the better that my body got.
Allison Dunne: Christine says she will keep her disability to herself when it comes to the workplace.
Christine Sangobowale: I don't choose to share just because if it doesn't really affect me, I won't really say anything about it. So, as long as I can get up in the morning and come to work and do my job as efficiently as I can, I don't feel the need to. But if there is a day where I do feel that I can't come in, then I will call and I'll make it known that, you know, this is what is going on, because usually when you tell people there's this sort of sympathy factor, a pity factor, like people feel sorry for you. And I don't like that feeling. I don't want people to know that there's anything.
Allison Dunne: Christine credits her parents, in large part, for her motivation. Her parents emigrated to the U.S. from Nigeria when her father was 28. She says both her parents went to school in the U.S., worked hard, and are doing well for themselves.
Christine has three brothers and one sister. One of her brothers is going for his PhD in neuroscience at Columbia University, while another brother is also in the sciences, and responsible for the Pfizer connection.
Christine Sangobowale: My brother, actually, he has his degree in biochemistry from University of Virginia, and he was working here, and he told me about the opportunity that they were looking for more scientists to come in and help them work on a project. So I decided to just give in my application, and I got called for an interview, and I got the job, so.
Allison Dunne: And what are you doing?
Christine Sangobowale: Um, I'm working in research and development, so we're just doing research, basically.
Allison Dunne: On medications.
Christine Sangobowale: Yes.
Allison Dunne: The R&D group in which she works is Immunology and Microbiology.
It sounds like, among five children, there's a science interest.
Christine Sangobowale: Yeah.
Allison Dunne: Where'd that come from?
Christine Sangobowale: Our parents. They said there's always jobs in health care because people always get sick So you can never go without a job. So their whole thing was job security when you're picking your field. So they said, if you get a job in science, if you get a degree in science, you will always have a job.
Allison Dunne: Christine says she found moral support not only at home, but from a mentor during her undergraduate days.
Christine Sangobowale: My grades were really bad that semester, and I just, I was having like a nervous breakdown. I was like, oh my god, I'm not going to be able to do this, you know. He was like, Christine, don't worry about it. He's like everyone has those semesters where they just wonder. He's like, continue, 'cause I was like, maybe I should change my major, maybe I'm not cut out for this, 'cause it was a hard semester. I was taking calculus, I was taking, um, microbiology, I was taking organic chemistry. I was taking like these really upper-level classes all at the same time with all labs, and I was just having a hard semester. And I was like doubting myself and doubting my ability, like, am I really cut out to do this kind of work. And he was so positive in motivating me. Like my parents, of course, they always motivate me, but when you hear it from someone else, it makes you feel a little bit more support. So, because of him I continued on, and I'm grateful for his advice, so.
Allison Dunne: Would you consider him a mentor?
Christine Sangobowale: Yeah, definitely.
Allison Dunne: Christine says she's still in touch with him.
She earned her undergraduate degree in biology, and says she was the only African-American female in her class to graduate with a degree in biology.
I asked her how important she thinks it is for a minority woman with a disability to have a mentor.
Christine Sangobowale: I think it's more important because you have more factors of people telling you you can't do something. If you have to listen to every time someone told you you can't do something, it's like, you would never accomplish anything. It's like, for one person that tells you you can, there's going to be ten people that tell you you can't do it. So it's really, it's really who you decide that you want to listen to. So I feel like a mentor is definitely positive.
Allison Dunne: And Christine has created her own definition of success.
Christine Sangobowale: Success for me would be reaching the highest level that I can possibly reach knowing that I tried my best. So even if I don't get the job that I wanted or get the salary that I want to make or live in a place that I want to, if I knew that I tried by best, as hard as I could, and I didn't get it, then I would feel happy; I would be content with wherever I am in my life. So that would be success for me.
Allison Dunne: Christine Sangobowale is a graduate student in environmental science, and is working for Pfizer.
For 51%, I'm Allison Dunne.
Access to Advancement is made possible by the National Science Foundation Research in Disabilities Education Program.