SFSU mentorship helps STEM students succeed in competitive doctoral programs
Graduate students supported by SFSU’s Student Enrichment Opportunities office complete Ph.D. programs, regardless of undergrad institution or GPA
When San Francisco State University alumna Muryam Gourdet (M.S., ’16) wanted to quit her Ph.D. program, she received a message from one of her former mentors in the SFSU Student Enrichment Opportunities (SEO) program: “Don’t quit. Come talk to me now.”
She came back to campus to talk to SFSU Professor Teaster Baird, who was the Chemistry and Biochemistry Department Chair at the time and is now a College of Science & Engineering (CoSE) Associate Dean. Other SFSU mentors reached out to Gourdet — in person and by phone and email. Some even contacted faculty and program managers at Gourdet’s Ph.D. institution, University of California San Francisco (UCSF), to help in situations where she felt powerless.
“It was full force,” she said.
Gourdet successfully finished her Ph.D. at UCSF. She also earned a mentorship award there — UCSF faculty started asking her for mentorship advice — and accomplished several other achievements along the way. After her Ph.D., she worked in industry for a few years.
It’s a story heard time and time again in SFSU’s SEO community.
“Once SEO, always SEO,” said SEO Director Megumi Fuse, a professor in the Department of Biology.
Since the early 1990s, SEO has housed training grants for undergraduate and graduate students in CoSE, providing research opportunities, stipends, full tuition, career development opportunities, graduate application guidance and community. Although it mostly serves students in Biology and Biochemistry and Chemistry, SEO has impacted nearly all majors in the college at one point.
In a new PLOS One paper, Fuse and collaborators at SFSU and California State University, Los Angeles (CSULA) demonstrate that this system leads to master’s students enrolling in and successfully completing prestigious Ph.D. programs, regardless of undergraduate GPA. It supports the larger movement for a more holistic assessment of student success.
SEO students wearing merch from their Ph.D. institutions
GPA isn’t everything
“We have this amazing pool of students that are hidden,” said Fuse. “Things like their GPA and need to work mask their ability to be successful. Once we give them money and mentorship, we see their true abilities.”
SEO supported over 500 students between 1992 and 2019. Eighty-nine percent of the 330 SFSU master’s students who applied to Ph.D. programs were accepted. Fuse's collaborators at CSULA’s MORE (More Opportunity in Research) office reported a similar pattern. Students enrolled in top research institutions such as UC Davis, UC Berkeley, University of Washington, UCSF, Harvard, Stanford and more.
Importantly, the 30 years of data showed that students with low and high GPAs (below and above 3.0, respectively) — regardless of their undergraduate institution — were accepted to and completed programs at comparable rates.
Undergraduate GPA is often used as a predictor for student success and as an early filter — but the metric provides an incomplete picture of a student’s potential.
“I had no money. Paying my bills came first; school came second,” Gourdet said of her undergrad years. She had been working at Ikea for years and was trying to figure out how to make that a sustainable career. “My GPA was a perfect map reflecting things I was going through in my life.”
SEO not only funded and supported Gourdet’s master’s program but adapted to meet her specific needs. When she started at SFSU, she had a 6-month-old daughter.
“They paid my travel fees for conferences and gave me resources so I could pay for my daughter to come with me because that would have been a challenge,” she explained. “The money they gave provided the opportunity to dedicate my time and efforts to research.
SEO alumni Muryam Gourdet (left) and Dennis Tabuena (right)
Network with insider insight
“I applied to San Francisco State and San José State. I basically made my decision based on the SEO support I was going to get,” said Dennis Tabuena (M.S., ’16), now a postdoctoral fellow at the Gladstone Institute. “I still think my favorite experience in research was the two years I spent at SFSU. It was probably the most productive years in my whole research career.”
Though Tabuena didn’t have the best grades as a UC Merced undergrad and only did research in his last year, he was able to transition to a biotech job. The problem was that he quickly discovered a career ceiling that required a Ph.D. to break. After a few unsuccessful Ph.D. application cycles, he decided to pursue a master’s degree as a stepping stone.
SEO’s extended network was invaluable to Tabuena’s success earning a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of Washington, Seattle. While SEO provided coaching, practice interviews and writing support, the office also brought university recruiters to talk about programs and provide a peek behind the admissions process.
“I’ve been able to get big-name universities to come to SF State on their dime. They fly recruiters in; they pay for the hotels, the airfare,” Fuse explained. “UCSF, Stanford, Harvard — they come to SFSU to recruit. They realize that SFSU is a goldmine for students.”
Tabuena recalls some recruiters would even provide feedback on personal statements and answer questions via email. They provided insight that could only be provided by someone on admissions committees, something that was lacking in his industry experiences.
SEO’s students and alumni themselves are critical to the health of the SEO ecosystem. As Gourdet prepared to leave industry, SEO connected her with alumni who had similar career experiences and trajectory. She has been coming back to SFSU two or three times a year for on-campus events.
SEO also provides undergrads with research experience. The number of undergraduate and graduate SEO alumni is in the hundreds. Alumni often stay connected with SFSU and participate in panels and other events with current students and faculty.
The lasting SEO effect
“It’s so many layers of mentorship that hopefully [students] don’t fall through the cracks,” Fuse said. She and her collaborators built the SEO infrastructure with longevity and a culture shift in mind. “Students also learn to mentor the next generation. I think one thing you’ll find with low-income minority students is that they want to give back to their community.”
SEO scholars like Juan Mendoza (B.S., '03) have gone on to become professors carrying on the tradition of the high-caliber science and intentional mentorship at prestigious universities.
Tabuena wants to stay in academia. As an SFSU student, he used to mentor community college summer interns, so he’s continuing to do this as a postdoctoral fellow at the Gladstone, a research institution affiliated with UCSF.
“We’re giving people that opportunity to get into the lab. These people are not in a position where [research experience is] readily available to them,” he explained. “It’s very important for me to keep doing that now that I’m on the inside.”
Thanks to her campus visits, Gourdet just started her dream position as program manager for SFSU Assistant Professor Archana Anand’s Phage Pathways program. The Department of Energy-funded program with two national labs is creating a pipeline to train students for the renewable energy workforce.
“I tell students that the most important thing is the network you build, not the things you learn. You can learn material from anywhere; you can Google a lot,” Gourdet said. “But knowing the right people to guide your next steps is critical.”
Learn more about the Student Enrichment Opportunities (SEO) program at SFSU.
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