133: Contextualizing Higher Ed Models and Academia’s Hidden Curriculum with Jamaal Muwwakkil

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Welcome back, everyone to the Grad School Femtoring podcast. This is Dra. Yvette and today, I have another wonderful guest who's going to be talking to us all about contextualizing higher ed models and academia's hidden curriculum. Our guest today is Jamaal Muwwakkil, and he is a sociocultural linguist and educator. He's originally from Compton, California. And he's a proud product of California's public K through 16 education system. He also advocated for greater access and equity as the University of California Student Regent, he's someone to know y'all. Jamaal's currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Linguistics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. And his dissertation investigates language socialization of Black students within an elite public higher education model. Welcome to the podcast, Jamaal.

Jamaal Muwwakkil

Thank you so much. It's so great to be here with you today.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

I know it's been a while hasn't it? Yes, yeah. So for the folks that don't know you, I would love for you to get us started by telling us a little bit more about your background, your backstory, anything you feel comfortable sharing about who you are, and what led you to pursuing a PhD in linguistics.

Jamaal Muwwakkil

Absolutely. And again, thank you for the opportunity to be here with you, for your listeners who don't know we've, we've known each other for quite a while. I know to give some context of that. And again, it's it's to speak to the merit of what you're doing right now. You were my graduate school mentor, as a Mellon Undergraduate Research Fellow at UCLA.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

I still remember your project.

Jamaal Muwwakkil

So good, yay, somebody there. So that's awesome. But yeah, I just say that to say that you've been doing this work for a very long time. And you can add me along your long list of success stories of people that you've mentored through the process. So thank you. So a little about me. As you mentioned, I'm originally from Compton, California. I'm a first generation college student, but my path was a little non traditional. I'm a community college transfer student. And I remember going through high school and I went to a Magnet High School. And it was college preparatory and resulted in me applying as a matter of course, to colleges, and I got accepted to a couple. But I also knew that I as a first-generation college student just really didn't have any of the logistical awareness about how you actually attend college.

Jamaal Muwwakkil

Some of the questions may sound silly at this point, but I really was thinking about the idea of like, such that I'm accepted here. Like, what do I do? Like yeah, does the school pay for me to fly to where I need to go? Because I don't have the money to get to DC or NorCal. Do I come now or do I come like later? Like when the first day of school is, like, how do you get your money like I don't have any to give you. And I don't know anything about financial aid, or anything like this. I just legit had no idea about how to get from where I was to where I was going. And so I reasoned if I was gonna stumble through the process, and may as well as stumble through the processes close to home, and for as little money as possible. And so I started attending Cerritos College here in South LA, guessing my way through the process, just taking classes as we talked about it. And I took a bunch of classes and ended up kind of bouncing around to a lot of different community colleges. I think I have transcripts in seven different colleges before I transferred to UCLA. And it took me 10 years. And all the while I was working jobs. I worked at Footlocker in the Lakewood Mall if you know South LA. I worked at Disneyland for a time I worked for a call center, I worked for credit union.

Jamaal Muwwakkil

I worked at Hollywood Video and Subway, no shame.

Jamaal Muwwakkil

Oh my god, Hollywood Video. Those were the day I respect it. Absolutely. Oh, these kids nowadays. Awesome stuff. But that's the part of that idea is that the idea of one of the luxuries that aren't really afforded to a lot of first gen college students is being able to just go to school, right? Oftentimes we have to go to school and work to pay bills, figure out like you know, car issues, pay tickets and I didn't you know, and just live Just like while also juggling, and then you're guessing, so we don't know what to do or how to do it, we're doing the best we can with what we know. And that usually just kind of manifests in a protracted amount of time before you figure it out. If you're lucky, you'll eventually make it through when if you're in the majority, you know, any of these other issues will take you out, you know, you'll start to set down rooms get a promotion, a job that interferes with your, your courses, it's more than a few classes and I just had to take a incomplete or an F because the finals conflicted with my work schedule, I just couldn't take the time off because rent me the pain. So all that to say, long, protracted journey.

Jamaal Muwwakkil

But I eventually did be able to did make it through to UCLA. And that's where I met you applied to be a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Research Fellow was very fortunate to have been able to be accepted into that program, which allowed me to have access to graduate mentors who knew more about the process than I did and helped streamline it. And for me to get the most out of my time there. At the, at the time, I was a linguistics major, which is, you know, a very rare major for folks, especially first-generation folks to take on.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

So, so sorry to cut you off, like going into UCLA, you you knew you wanted to major in linguistics?

Jamaal Muwwakkil

Yeah, one of the things about community college transfers is that you have to apply directly into a major so you can apply on undecided and then figure out what you want to major around later, you have to apply directly into the major. And it's an interesting story. I like most first gen college students kind of pick majors, around jobs, and around jobs that we're familiar with just in our day to day life, or majors that sound like majors. So the idea here would be disproportionately large number of first generation students pick majors like psychology, which is for sociology, English, history, like the things that sound like majors or things that kind of map onto jobs that we're familiar with police officer, lawyer, social worker, teacher, these types of things. What you don't know is places like say UCLA have over 100 majors, and that the majors actually don't map onto any career one to one. Because that's not the purpose. And we'll get into more of that later. But I chose psychology initially, because it sounded like a major and then I did a silly thing where I decided I didn't make the follow up questions. What do you want to do with that? Out here guessing. And so I chose a major that people that I had heard of, and people will stop asking follow up questions about which was linguistics, linguistics, like oh, that's, that's interesting. sound smarter. And then that's it no more follow up questions. Like, yes, mission accomplished.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

What? They didn't ask what do you do with that?

Jamaal Muwwakkil

No, cuz they don't know. And I didn't know either. So we were all just nodding our head and moving forward our lives. Eventually, I had the good fortune of taking some actual linguistics courses at one of the few community colleges LACC that offered linguistics, and found out that I really do like it. It's really cool. And so majored in it, apply for it, I majored in it. At UCLA, it was a under it was not a highly competitive major, which really helped on the strategy of actually getting in. And, yeah, I've really enjoyed my time there and really enjoyed doing graduate work now and in the field, because I really get to explore the social implications, the consequences of language use, you know, identity, politics, these types of fun things. So yeah, so that's the general trajectory.

Jamaal Muwwakkil

I thought that I, I decided I wanted to be a professor primarily. And it's kind of where I still am because of tenure, right? Person who worked a lot of jobs, I can really appreciate the idea of job security. And professor with the promise, potentially, of tenure says to me that if I do well, I can have a job and a paycheck until I die. And I like that. Also, I enjoy being able to have the academic freedom to explore questions that are interesting to me, but also tenure. So this is part of the reason why I chose this career path and academia, love the freedom, love the job security and to be able to kind of meet some of the best and the brightest thinking about really cool ideas and things.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

So, um, very succinct. I appreciate hearing your full story. From you know, the beginning up until where you are now at UCSB. And recent, Ford Fellow, I just want to mention that congratulations, I think that's huge. I'm so happy and proud of you. And also the fact that you are a non traditional, you know, you have that non traditional background. And I think that's something to be really proud of to say, yeah, it took me 10 years. And I'm here and I'm doing it. But you're here also to talk about higher ed models. And that's something that you yourself study. And so I'm wondering, and I'm getting a little note, we've got transcriptions going on. So for my listeners, that's something that new that I'm adding to my podcast is I'm adding transcripts to all of my episodes. But anyway, I want to go back to the higher ed model conversation, like, what brought you to wanting to have this conversation about higher ed models? Why is it important for first gen students of color to even understand what higher ed models are? So you can just get started with introducing it as a concept and, and why why should we know about this?

Jamaal Muwwakkil

Absolutely. Yeah. I think especially as a first-generation college students, we approach and we envision college and just kind of one thing. So in a, in a simple sense, we might say that college is just the thing you do after high school, right? We may talk about it as, as I often do, trying to get the piece of paper that says that I deserve to be paid a living wage, right, like, that's what college is. And that's what college is for? Well, we don't quite ever really get is, what are the differences between different colleges and universities? Like, attend? What are they good for? Who should go to which? And for what reason? Right? So a part of this idea can be explored through understanding like What even are majors? So in one sense, we think of majors as the pre career, right? So this is where you practice and get training for, to be able to kind of do the job that you want to do, right? That's a workforce development model. And there are schools that do that. That's their job. We do work force development. But then there are schools who markedly do not do that, and will fight you for the right to be able to not ever do that. The University of California is one of these places.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Tell us more about that. I'm sure everybody listening is like, well, hold up, hold up. I'm majoring for a job.

Jamaal Muwwakkil

Yeah, that's the idea. So if you're so I'll break it up into the idea. And again, sorry for the folks that I'm going to be really California specific. But I think it's a great example of how these things work, the California masterplan in the 1960s, the broke up public higher education to three segments. This is the University of California, the California State University and the California Community College system. They are all a part of public higher education in California. And then of course, there are also like small liberal arts colleges and private schools, but public universities, and they have different goals and missions. The goal of the University of California to serve as the research arm, they are research universities, every single one of the 10 campuses in the University of California, our research universities and have a research mission, the California State University system are more or less teaching colleges that do workforce development and things in that area. And the community college is there for lifelong learning remedial education and as a pathway to the other two segments through the transfer route.

Jamaal Muwwakkil

How does this matter for the student? Well, the first way that it matters is availability of different majors, you will find that very few University of California campuses have social work, have teaching as it relates to like teacher preparation and education. As a major, they just don't have it as an undergrad major, because that's not what they do those majors, stuff like marketing, not going to be on the UC rosters, because those are jobs that need training and preparation in order to just kind of go from step one to step two in the career. This is not I'm saying I'm not high, I'm making a hierarchy here saying one is better than the other, they just have different goals. And so if I as a an applicant wanted to be a K 12 Teacher, I might do myself a disservice to go to where you see because I would have to in order to get my credential or do like a postback or a master's program. In order to actually do that I'll major in something. But I'll have to do some addendum work to kind of flesh out my credit my credentials, as opposed to going to say something like Cal State Dominguez Hills where I can get a credential right out of undergrad.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

I'm so glad I just want to mention something I'm so glad you mentioned this because I noticed that, you know, among high schoolers or even early college students, there's almost a sense of elitism or this, this prestige of like, I'm going to attend a UC, as opposed to like, there are some really wonderful schools, especially you mentioned some of the Cal States, even at the community college level as you can get really great education. But they don't realize that because of this idea of the prestige rather than thinking, What is my end goal, and which school aligns with my end goal? So I just wanted to say that just right up out of the bat, because I know I've encouraged students to go the Cal State Route. And they're like, Wait, why? And I'm like, wait, no, but you want to do teaching, or you want to do you know, X like you're going to get really good training? Yeah.

Jamaal Muwwakkil

Right. And it's about the idea of the training that has to align with the ambitions of the applicant of the student, right. So everything is going to be relatively better in some area or another based on what it is that you want to do. So your first goal as a student is to kind of get as much of a sense as you can about where you want to go, and what you want to do. And different schools will be a better fit than others in that regard. So if you're looking to try to just kind of, I need to make money as soon as possible, I need to just go in here, get this certification, get this training, and then go and start working and making money because I have life obligations, family, just I don't have a big safety net. So I need to just hit the ground running. The Cal States can be a great array option for that purpose. The UC is not without its merits, of course, right.

Jamaal Muwwakkil

And I want to just touch in on one of the points that you just made. A lot of times we make our decisions around college choice. And there's a lot of research in the idea of school choice. But we make a lot of them around familiarity, right. So there's a there was a school that I won't name, that's good school, they kind of big booths and applications because they're a school that usually isn't in the March Madness by 2016 basketball tournaments. But then they made it and they got pretty far. And so then they say like saw like a 50% increase in applications because of that. So it's the visibility, marketing, right? So you may know a school by name, not because it has an amazing English program, because their football team is really good. And oh, you like the colors of a mascot? Sounds good. Like these are how we're making decisions.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

I'm lauching because I'm thinking of all the people who were like, UCLA has a terrible football team. I'm like, I'm not here to become a football player.

Jamaal Muwwakkil

Right? I'm not trying to get drafted to the league through my association with UCLA. Yeah, so but it speaks to the idea of this meeting folks where they are, that's probably why you see certain schools and certain lights or the US News and World Report ranking, right. This one says it's a good school, it's better, it's ranked number one in the nation public. So it must be better for me, right? And if I got in, I should go. Right. So it's like I can understand I can make the best of a bad situation and go to my second third choice. But if I got into UCLA, even though I'm looking to try to be a K 12 Teacher, or whatever, I love UCLA, go bruins. But the idea is like if they disalign with my personal ambitions, I'll still go because it's a quote unquote, better school, right? This better school thing can be misleading.

Jamaal Muwwakkil

And so what is the UC good for? Well, we say the the UCs and UCLA and Berkeley and Irvine and Riverside is all research institutions. And if you were interested in developing some competencies in research methodologies and theories, you'll have access to the best and brightest people on the cutting edge of research in that field, you'll have access to the professors who are published and wanting the grants and asking the big questions that have access to graduate students who are pushing the disciplines and the ideas further, you get to sit down and have facetime with them and talk to them and explore what are your ideas and questions and how you can be involved as an undergraduate researcher, and you get to do that you can do that at other places. But this, this structure is set up for you to do that. There's money for you to do that. There's resources for you to do that. And you can use that engagement as a great stepping stone to be able to be accepted into graduate and PhD programs to explore that and more fully. I'll say just to kind of characterize this a bit more. And we all know this, who's kind of gone through when you major in a thing, you might have the misunderstanding that you know anything about that thing. There are levels to this. So if you are an undergrad linguistics major, you know some things but you know, nothing.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

That is why I went to grad school, because I graduated and was like what do I even know?

Jamaal Muwwakkil

Right, because in grad school, you realize just how deep this thing can go right. And you did get your introduction to whatever class and you learn some things. Absolutely, that rabbit hole goes deep. So if that sounds like fun for you, when you really want to explore how deep this rabbit hole goes grad school, it's a place to do that we can actually kind of figure out in a very narrow sense, what it is that you're looking at. But if that's not interesting to you, then don't do it. Grad school can be a trap if you if you're not here for that type of investigation. But those are the differences. I'll highlight also, and it dovetails into a hidden curriculum paradigm. If you're at a research institution, the best thing you can do is networking. It's in one sense, and I think it's true of us first generation college students, we just think that we just need to keep our head down, do the work, and the work will speak for itself. I think that idea aligns itself with the myth of meritocracy. And what I mean by that is that it is not true, contrary to popular belief that the best people get the position or get the opportunity to get the job in anything. It absolutely being good and competent at your job is absolutely a prerequisite. But there's a lot of people that are good at that that's the difference that they all get the job just because they're good at, right.

Jamaal Muwwakkil

A lot of this has to do with relationships. And you have to be invested proactively in developing and nurturing those relationships. Because these in the grad school paradigm, these are your peers, fellow researchers, and as a shorthand, they'll say, Well, I don't know this person, who are they with? What is their network, I see you went to UCLA, that means you probably know my buddy, this that this person or that person. And that means you probably know these theories or these methods. And that means you probably can do this work in this way. They're shorthands. Now they'll read your application, the reader thesis, they'll read your articles, absolutely. But they're placing you based on which network you're in. And if you have not developed and expanding your network, they don't know they can't make sense of you, you're wholly illegible, independent of the quality of your work. So the best thing you can do one of the best things you can do while you're in a college space, make friends have people show up to office hours, talk to your TAs, and specifically let them know what your goals are, where would you like to go? What would you like, for your education to do for you, they have ideas, and they will help you to do that. But they can't address issues that they don't know exist. They're working with dozens, if not hundreds of students, every quarter, they're trying to finish their other stuff. But they're willing to engage with you, they're actually being paid to engage with you. If you opt out by just kind of keeping your head down staying to yourself and just doing your work, you're not going to get the full benefit of schools you're in.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

You know this, this reminds me of a conversation I was having with someone. So sometimes I'll folks will randomly reach out to me to meet me to ask me questions about grad school about anything related to that. And I had someone and I think I'm gonna talk about this in a separate podcast episode about like what to do if you're interested in going to grad school and you're like trying to debate between two different career choices. But what are the things I was telling this person? Because they weren't sure. Like, should I go to the counseling route or go to social work route? I said, you need to start talking to people you need to go out like go on LinkedIn, it's okay. Like, you know, if you've got some sort of connection, like, then connect, click the connect button, send them a message, ask for 15, 30 minutes of their time, find out what is the day in the life? How did they get to that career? What advice do they have for you, and you never know. And it's the same advice that I give to folks who already know where they want to apply for grad school and have a list of where they're going to apply my okay, go contact. The grad students contact, recent alumni contact professors, they're all going to give you different advice, different perspectives, and ultimately see like what's gonna get you to that end goal in sight.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

So you always have to have that long term goal in sight, your career, your lifestyle, you know, what is it that what kind of life are you trying to pursue? And which track or which route which journey is going to get you there. So, but what like, what's really important is those connections I wish I had known this because as an undergrad, I was very shy and introverted and kept to myself didn't want to bother anybody. But now that I'm on the other side of things, and I'm the one connecting, and the one that people are trying to reach out to, as well, I'm realizing the strength in the network and the community building, whatever you want to call it. And just like, connecting with folks, it's so important. And the people that I know, that are successfully navigating their career, whether that's inside or outside academia, that's how they do it is with the connections with referrals with people who, like, oh, I heard this statistic, and I wish that I knew where it was from. But someone said that over 70% of job ads are not publicly listed online. So you don't find out about the majority of the jobs out there unless you actually know someone.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

So anyway. I want to ask you to I know this, the conversation is about higher ed models. And he's also kind of covered a little bit about the hidden curriculum to all the things that we don't know, like I could relate to you, you when you said going to college, you're you're like, how do I even get there who pays for me? I have to say, I had a lot of anxiety actually going to college? Because I was like, what, how do I do the basic things like transportation, all those things? stress me out? So I'm wondering, like, what kind of advice would you give to someone who is you know, has like a parallel path where maybe it's taking them a little longer to finish their undergraduate degree, and they might be struggling right now. And they're trying to navigate college or they're, you know, trying to navigate, I don't know, the first year of their grad program. And the hidden curriculum continues to be an issue of like, just feeling like they don't know enough.

Jamaal Muwwakkil

Ah, I think that that's going to be a perpetual issue, that you'll never get the full picture. And you're going to be kind of making your best guesses as you go along. But there are some strategies you can take to try to make sure that you have the broadest number of options to choose from, so that you can make a choice in the light of day as opposed to being relegated to a decision based on your limited information. And so one of those things, as we've mentioned before, is talk to people let them know, I don't know what I'm doing. Help me. And you'd be, I hope, pleasantly surprised about how many people are interested in help.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

I'm curious about the how the whole like, how do you actually connect with people, the only reason I'm asking you in particular is because I know you, you are so well connected. Everybody and their mama knows, you might just say I have a couple of friends like this or like I just say their name out loud, someone is going to know them, I think more people knew you at UCLA, then they knew me and I was there for 10 years.

Jamaal Muwwakkil

That's very kind of you to say.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

How for an introvert like me? How do you connect with people and maintain those relationships?

Jamaal Muwwakkil

Yeah, you're absolutely right, I have a few strategies that I'll kind of lay out that have worked for me. So one of them is kind of take people at their word. So we do this as educators all the time, we do conference talks, or guest lectures and things, and we put our email on our slideshow on the board. And we say, if you have any questions or like to just connect with me, or, or anything like this, please do reach out to me. And I've done this dozens of times at this point. And I think I'm, I'm at I'm at about a like a 1% return rate, right? Like very few people follow up. Very, very few people follow up. And if you're one of those people who do follow up, I remember you, and I will give you the world follow up. But very few people do. And there's situations where I'm in a I'm in a space and I'm giving a talk or I'm visiting a workshop where the demographic that's represented is exactly the demographic that I want to be impacting. And I want to be able to help and show you the things that I didn't know to streamline your process. And I'm basically begging you please, please reach out. And most of them will not the overwhelming majority just will not.

Jamaal Muwwakkil

And this could be because of a sense of imposter syndrome. It could be for a sense of I don't want to burden you I know you're busy and things like that. I'll just be kind. My encouragement is don't be kind in that way. I cannot force my whatever connections relationships, advice, you know, opportunities on you, I need you to show me something. And you showing me something looks like just engaging with me on a first level feedback. So if I say please email me please email me, if I say, I'm gonna be here for office hours, please visit me, come, you'll be the only one. I'll say just even in our experience with while you were the graduate mentor and now than it was just me and you.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

I know. Having tea. And me reviewing your pieces.

Jamaal Muwwakkil

Exactly. And I know you and then the front office staff person begging students at all levels, like I'm interested in research. And I really want to learn more about the process. And I want to go to grad school. And I'm like, That's great. You know, our whole department does exactly that. Just come on down. And we love to help you, we'll walk you through, we will help you with your app, revise your statements. It's all good. Come on down. No one comes down. Now you I heard that message. And I went the same day, and I was there. And it was a nice quiet place to do my writing because no one else was coming through. And so I hear the pushback and saying, it's really hard, because we all know how, and I get that I'm right there with you. Do anything. And you and there's people on the other side who are invested in you, and they'll make up the difference. But you got to take a step. If you take a step, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised about how far it'll take you.

Jamaal Muwwakkil

And so that's the strategy that I've taken. I take people at their word, they say, shoot me an email, I'd love to talk to you. I'm shooting an email today. I'm going to set up a meeting, I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm going to connect with you. And I've done that with everybody. Every class I've taken at UCLA, I went to every students, every grad students, office hours, etc. With every professor's office hours and seconds, I asked about stuff that I hadn't I could not know, I did not know that they needed to help me. I told people in the first you know how to schedule for Mellon work, where you had to apply for Mellon the first semester, your first quarter.

Jamaal Muwwakkil

Yea, as a transfer student.

Jamaal Muwwakkil

As a transfer student. November was a deadline. And I got there late September. So I got like a month and a half to find a faculty mentor. And I was begging everybody, I talked to all all the classes, I was enrolled, and I was like, Hey, would you be willing to advise me? They were like, I'm like, okay, cool. So you won't do it? Can you recommend someone else who might be interested, and they'll give me a name, and then I'll reach out to that person I meet with them, hey, this is what I'm thinking about doing? Would you be willing to advise me if it took six people, six handoffs,

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

I had a similar experience, by the way, right, multiple people.

Jamaal Muwwakkil

And if I just took the first no, then I just I wouldn't have had the opportunity. There was a yes, in there. But I had to keep pressing. I do think it's unfair and unreal, or unreasonable, that we're putting that type of situation we have to be unreasonably diligent, in order to kind of gain access to these taken for granted resources. But we live in a world that we currently live in, we're all working to try to make that better. But until that's better, we're going to have to do unreasonable things to get what we want. And that's the step. Press, ask people at their word, respond to emails, follow up, show up in person, you will be surprised at how few people actually do that. And you will stand out in their minds. And this is part of the reason why people know me, because you'd like is you you said I'd say show up. And so that's been a very useful strategy. And it's carried me all the way through the to the Board of Regents, right? Oh, good, great relationships, because I show up.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Like today.

Jamaal Muwwakkil

I follow up. And you know, and it doesn't take much time and whatnot, but people remember it.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Mm hmm. Speaking of time, I know we're getting close to time. And so I just want to wrap up the second to last question. The last question is, how can others reach you? So second to last question is any final words closing thoughts on the topic of educational models, hidden curriculum, speaking up, following up?

Jamaal Muwwakkil

Absolutely. Yeah, I'll say that. The part of the benefit of kind of understanding different higher ed models, works also in the graduate school application process and in the junior faculty application process, specifically, because it speaks to how you'll be evaluated. So if you're at a teaching college, then your teaching and your pedagogy and the student evaluations are going to carry a lot of weight and whether or not you get tenure or whether or not you're doing a good job, in a research university model that will carry a lot less to no weight at all. So if you're like I really want to be an impactful, diligent and transformative educator. The youth of tomorrow. And so I'll go to this research university where they don't care about teaching at all, it may be misaligned, doesn't mean that you can't be impactful and transformative as an educator, but you won't necessarily get as much credit for it. For all the time that you spend in preparation, and engage engagement, this is going to be okay, you taught your class great, but whereas those publications, or if you're interested in the research aspect, that you're saying, you know, I really just want to explore the questions that I think are interesting, I want to kind of engage and in the conversation of scholars who are interested in this topic or this issue or this model, and yes, I'm fine teaching, but that's not my favorite thing, that maybe the the R1 research institution or model is a better fit for you.

Jamaal Muwwakkil

I'm engaging this question in this way. Because I think that so many folks get disenchanted because they're just disaligned with the model. And their ambition, like they, they're trying to do something in a place that doesn't value it. And then that can cause you to spin your wheels and potentially burn out. And if you kind of know, on the front end, ah, this is what this institution values, let me align with what it value so that I'm kind of swimming up, I'm swimming with the current as opposed to against it, then it can lead to less stress as you kind of press through this already fraught process. So there's that idea about just kind of going and attending a school that's aligned with your ambitions, and then applying to work at a school that values what you want to contribute and how you want to live your day. Those things I think, can help for folks that kind of live the life that they want to live, wherever it is that they are.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

That's wonderful. That's really, I couldn't have said that better. So for folks who listen to the episode and connected with what you said, want to follow up themselves, is there a way for them to reach you? Or what's the best way for them to contact you?

Jamaal Muwwakkil

Absolutely. Yeah. So I have a Twitter. Nice, Twitter's a mess right now. I hate Twitter. But I have it. happen for this reason in particular. So my Twitter handle is @wordsbyjamaal where Jamaal is spelled J-A-M-A-A-L words by Jamaal. And you can find my website at wordsbyjamaal.com Send me an email. And I would love to chat with you. If you're interested in anything that I've discussed or graduate school or any of these types of things. I'm always willing to kind of chat with folks.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

That's great. I will be adding that to my show notes. Well, that was a really great conversation. Oh my goodness, it's so nice to reconnect to stay in touch. Now I know why we, I feel like the folks that I know, tend to be introverts because I mean, extroverts because I'm the introvert. I like now I know Jamaal's strategy.

Jamaal Muwwakkil

I'll say also just to kind of key into that I to self identify as an introvert. I just, I just go on TV. Yeah, no, I this is a learned skill.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Thank you for saying that.

Jamaal Muwwakkil

Yeah, I this is not come naturally add to figure this out. And it's all intentional, like, proactive effort to do this. But I think that it is worthwhile. It does kind of pay off.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

It really is. I mean, I've been doing more of that recently. And this was all post PhD I again, I wish I had known this like you did earlier on. It's such a great skill to have. So I am glad that you mentioned that I didn't realize you were introverted. So it gives the rest of us hope. Thank you so much for coming on this show. Well, I think I I giggled one too many times. That's how you know that I know you. And yeah, it is just really nice to stay in touch to hear your your words of wisdom, knowledge, experience, and everything else that I'm sure a lot of folks are gonna connect with. So thank you.

Jamaal Muwwakkil

Yeah, I hope it's useful. Thank you so much for the invitation. It's been great to be here and I'm looking forward to chatting with you in the future.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Great. Thank you.