3. Subaita Rahman - Create Serendipity for Opportunity

Subaita’s fascination with research began in high school, which is where we began. It led her to the University of Toronto’s Life Sciences Program, where she carved out a space for herself as a community builder and entrepreneur, pursuing Ryerson University’s DMZ Youth Basecamp Program within her first year. Here, she learned to “condition herself to failure,” a skill that came in useful later as she emailed over a dozen scientists at U of T to conduct research at their labs a summer later. Her persistence led her to Dr. Alison McGuigan’s lab at U of T, learning how to code with no prior experience, eventually making so much of a change that she was awarded top researcher at the U of T Undergraduate Engineering Research Day. But it wasn’t easy. In between these successes, Subaita talks about the difficulty of finding scholarships to fund your dreams, and lack accessibility of opportunities. We also talk about how hard it is to find a community in a large program of study, how she overcame that. *Subaita mentions that the PEY co-op program wasn't available at the time she was looking for internships. Arts & Science recently launched the ASIP (Arts & Science Internship Program) program*