Brian S. Lowery

What gave me a sense of meaning?

What I think about were my PhD students.

So one of the things that faculty do is train the next generation of faculty.

And so you have PhD students, and you have them for a significant amount of time, often it could be five to six years, and the relationships are pretty intense.

So let me tell you about my first student, Miguel Enzueta.

So Miguel was born in El Paso, Texas, in a relatively low-income area, really smart kid, does well in school, ends up at the University of Texas at Austin, which is a great university, does well there, eventually ends up in the PhD program at Stanford.

So Miguel gets there the year before I do, and by his own account, he's having a tough time.

It's a little rough, and it's rough in part because he doesn't have the cultural capital that many places like Stanford have.

He doesn't understand how the place works, so he's struggling a little bit.

Now, when I arrive, I'm really impressed because he's so smart, he's ambitious, and he's asking questions and interested in things that I'm interested in.

So I'm really excited to work with him.

And so we started to work together, and again, it's really intense.

I'm working with him for four years.

We see each other almost every day, almost every day for those four years.

And some days, we're working together 10 to 12 hours a day.

So it's a very intense experience.

And what I remember about that time was that I was really worried about doing enough to make sure he would be successful.

I was concerned.

Am I being a good advisor?

Am I giving him what he needs?