Bethany Weigele's blog

Imagine you are a young African student accepted for a full-ride scholarship to study at a university. Your selection was prompted by your passion to change the continent in which you were born. At the end of your time in school, you will be one of several thousand students who can call themselves a MasterCard Foundation Scholar and you will be charged to positively impact Africa by making a difference in your field, be it health, engineering or political science. What resources would you need to be successful?

My son, Benjamin is currently fifteen months old. He says over thirty words now, but I am proud to say that his first word was ‘mama’. While I did win the competition with my husband of whether he would say mama or dada first, the win was a little anticlimactic because Benjamin does not reserve the word ‘mama’ just for me. He uses the word as a request, and he will say it repeatedly to anyone until his need is met. For example, if he wants to be picked up by his dad he will tug on his dad’s legs and shout “mama, mama, mama”, or if he wants another bite of food he will say “mama?”.

Last month, my friend, Paul Maurice Johnson, lost his battle to cancer at the age of 29. He left behind his wife and four year old son. During his funeral, we remembered Paul as a great friend and a man who possessed a remarkable ability to be optimistic about everything. Even through his daily challenge of being sick from cancer treatments, he constantly checked in with friends communicating genuine excitement and care for those he knew. Paul saw his problem of fighting cancer as an opportunity to inspire people to continue on in their own battles whatever they may be.

It’s been several weeks now since I started as an Innovation Fellow at Arizona State University. I can without a doubt say that I love my job for many reasons. I am constantly challenged to design and create meaningful initiatives for the university. Though I am enjoying the fellowship, I have also begun to identify skills required for my job that I have never developed. To be honest, admitting these weaknesses does not come naturally.

As a recent graduate of a Ph.D. program in Molecular Microbiology, I am quite guilty of keeping my eyes “glued to the books” and not thinking about the larger picture of my educational endeavors. I spent five years studying foodborne pathogens, and I often joke about the paleness of my skin caused by always working in lab. At the end of the program, however, I began to reflect on my future and found myself wondering if I was going to be satisfied at the end of my life, if I continued as a scientist in the lab trying to solve one problem? For me, the answer was no.