Dual Major Anne Brown Finds Direction With Support, Experiences She's Had At University Of Missouri-St. Louis

Press release from the University of Missouri-St. Louis:

Anne Brown was running really low on confidence as she applied for research assistant positions at the University of Missouri–St. Louis in the winter of 2020.

She’d already been turned down for several opportunities, and she was beginning to think her academic record – which included some struggles dating to when she was first starting out at Colorado College – might keep her from ever getting the chance to gain the experience she longed for, working in a lab as she tried to plot her future path.

“That’s when I interviewed with Dr. Casad,” Brown said.

That’d be Bettina Casad, an associate professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences and the director of UMSL’s Behavioral Neuroscience Program. She offered Brown the chance to work as an undergraduate research assistant in her lab, investigating the links between experiences of stigma to psychological well-being, educational and career achievements, and physical health.

Brown points to that as a seminal moment in her life, which nearly two years later, has her on track to graduate this May with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and sociology. She has plans to conduct a research and evaluation project at local nonprofit Bridge of Hope Ministries over the next five months while awaiting word about graduate school to pursue a PhD in sociology.

“I’d been struggling for so long,” Brown said. “Honestly, so far my entire college career had been a struggle. I was getting knocked around in my confidence and my self-image. I think when somebody looked past my not really great transcript and was willing to give me a chance, I think that changed how I was looking at myself and the things that I was capable of doing.”

Casad’s recollection is a bit different. She doesn’t remember seeing anything lacking in Brown’s academic record, but that wasn’t ever her main focus.

“She was motivated and passionate about psychology and wanted to gain more experience,” Casad said. “I look for students who show excitement about research, and it seemed to me she would be hardworking.”

Brown has proven to be all of those things. She just needed a reminder.

School had never been difficult for Brown growing up. She got good grades and was a three-sport varsity athlete at St. Charles High School. She was even chosen to attend the National Student Leadership Conference at American University in the summer before her senior year.

She’d gone to Colorado College to play basketball on an ROTC scholarship after graduation and expected to use her time there to position herself for medical school. Brown had always looked up to her sister Shelby – 16 years her elder – who is now a doctor with Washington University Physicians.

But college didn’t go as smoothly as Brown or anyone else expected. She struggled being away from home and managing the responsibility that accompanied her newfound independence. She left Colorado College before the end of her first year and came back to St. Louis, working a series of part-time jobs while taking general education classes at St. Louis Community College.

Brown kept that up for two years, still not sure what direction she wanted her future to take.

“I was getting toward this precipice and thinking, ‘I need to start making some decisions,’” she said.

Brown decided to enroll at UMSL in the spring of 2019. It was a logical next step based on its proximity. Her sister had earned her bachelor’s degree in biology at the university in 2004 before attending medical school at the University of Missouri–Columbia.

She was happy to find plenty of supports and greater opportunities at UMSL than she’d had in community college, but her struggles didn’t end immediately.

“My first semester here was really tough,” Brown said. “Then I started to open up with my family about the struggles I was having, and I sought some professional help. That changed everything. I started to get a little bit more motivated and inspired by the things I was doing. I had more drive to push myself.”

This press release was produced by the University of Missouri-St. Louis. The views expressed here are the author’s own.