The Cohort Sistas Podcast
The Cohort Sistas Podcast is an empowering and enlightening podcast that holds space for Black women and nonbinary doctoral degree holders to share their stories, experiences, and expertise. Each episode features an engaging interview on a wide range of topics, including academic trajectory, application process, mentorship, funding, career development, mental health, and social issues. Hosted by Cohort Sistas Founder and Executive Director Dr. Ijeoma Kola, The Cohort Sistas Podcast is known for its authentic and relatable approach, providing listeners with valuable insights, practical advice, and a sense of community. Whether you're looking for inspiration, encouragement, or simply a thought-provoking conversation, this podcast is a must-listen for aspiring doctors seeking to connect, learn, and thrive.
Cohort Sistas provides digital resources, mentorship, and community to improve equity in doctoral education. While our programs and platform are open to all doctoral students, applicants, and degree holders, we prioritize and center the needs and perspectives of Black women and nonbinary scholars.
Be sure to follow us on social at https://www.twitter.com/cohortsistas and https://www.instagram.com/cohortsistas, and visit our website at https://www.cohortsistas.org.
The Cohort Sistas Podcast
Dr. McKenzie Stokes on Dealing with Rejection and the Financial Benefits of Going Straight from Undergrad to a PhD
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
On today’s episode, we speak to Dr. McKenzie Stokes, a community psychologist and first-generation college student whose work examines the protective effects of racial socialization on Black youth in mono- and multiracial Black families. You’ll hear about her own experience growing up in a biracial family, which has driven her research into the impact of parental communication within similar homes. Dr. Stokes reveals the statistics around suicidality and depression in biracial teenagers that further fueled her interest in the topic, and shares her academic journey from an uncertain undergraduate student going straight into her doctoral and post-doctoral studies. She unpacks her majors in community psychology, African American studies, and non profit management, and tells us about the scale she created to better measure how biracial individuals learn about race and the ways in which that shapes how they feel about their own identity and other Black people. We also discuss the doctoral application process and Dr. Stokes encourages future applicants to bear in mind that the application is holistic in nature; it doesn’t rest solely on your GRE scores. Dr. Stokes touches on the challenges she faced during her studies, including rejection and the emotional burden of teaching, before sharing some great victories, among which are persevering through rejection, three first-author publications, and receiving dissertation grants for data collection. We hope you join us to hear all this and more today!
Connect with Dr. McKenzie Stokes on LinkedIn and on Twitter.
If you are a Black woman interested in joining the Cohort Sistas community or you’re looking for more information on how to support or partner with Cohort Sistas, please visit our site at www.cohortsistas.com.
Find us on Twitter and Instagram, and don’t forget to follow the Cohort Sistas podcast, rate, and leave us a quick review wherever you’re listening.
Thank you for listening!
Leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts!
Join the Cohort Sistas community at community.cohortsistas.org
Visit our website to learn more about our programs and how you can support at cohortsistas.org
Email us at info@cohortsistas.org to connect, ask questions, or suggest guests
Follow Us on our social media platforms: