Member Spotlight: Ashley Ray

Ashley is a first year genetic counseling student at the Baylor College of Medicine Genetic Counseling Program. Below is a transcribed conversation between Ashley and Dina, one of our TxT Team members. Ashley met Dina, when she was an undergraduate student at the University of Houston.

DE: Hey Ashley! Tell me a little bit about yourself!

AR: I am currently a student who is going into their second year of genetic counseling training at the Baylor College of Medicine. I am originally from a smaller town in East Texas, near the Tyler area, and I completed my undergraduate [degree] at the University of Houston with a Bachelor of Science in Biology and a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature. I’m really looking forward to my Pediatric rotation coming up!

DE: That’s really exciting! I’m wondering, when did you first hear about genetic counseling?

AR: I first heard about it my junior year from one of my professors who I worked for as a peer facilitator at the University of Houston, and she was a biology professor.

Introducing Ashley Ray!

DE: So, I think we share this professor in common, Dr. Lisa Farmer. What role did Dr. Farmer’s class play in your GC journey?

AR: I actually didn’t end up taking a genetics class with her, but more just knowing her from our time together, me working as a peer facilitator. That’s a tutor or undergraduate teaching assistant. Chatting with her about career opportunities and what I was thinking about for my future, she pointed me in the direction of genetic counseling which is when I first heard about it. She was really great with helping me navigate things for my Senior year and setting me on the course to Genetic Counseling.

DE: And I understand that you attended a Genetic Counseling Informational Lecture in college. Can you tell me about that?

AR: Yes, so it was actually with you and another [GC] student from the Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Farmer let me know that y'all were coming to visit campus and talk about it a little bit more. I was really interested to hear from some students’ perspectives since I’d talked a little bit with some GCs about their experience being a genetic counselor, but they hadn’t been in school recently, so I was more interested in getting to know a little bit more about graduate school and the application process and the beginning tracks of becoming a genetic counselor. I attended that where y'all laid the groundwork for my understanding of what it looks like to be in clinic for the day, what it takes to do genetic counseling, and the process of applications. It was definitely helpful to help give me a lay of the land for sure!

DE: That’s great! Thinking back, I was an undergraduate student in Dr. Farmer’s class and had mentioned my interest in genetic counseling to her at that time. She remembered that interest and reached back out to me once I became a GC student regarding the informational session. I remember meeting you as well and your interest in genetics and genetic counseling. I understand that you’ve also met with other former Baylor GC students before joining the program?

AR: Yeah! It just so happened that the person closest to me to shadow while still living in East Texas right after I moved following graduation was Heather Lucas, who is a BCM GCP alumnus. So, I had the ability to shadow her over that summer while in the process of applying to schools. She was working in the prenatal setting at the time, so I was able to see a lot of great prenatal cases and it really made an impact on me in seeing the day-to-day of being a genetic counselor and seeing some of the heavier cases and all the psychosocial aspects that go into genetic counseling as well as the genetics and education side of things.

DE: So, you ended up at BCM GCP as a student. Now that you are a student, a big part of genetic counseling is giving back to the GC community, whether that is to other students, practicing GCs, or even to prospective students. What are you doing to pay it forward to the next generation of GCs?

AR: I also got invited back to Dr. Farmer’s lecture once she had heard that I had gotten [accepted] into a program. I let her know that I had matched at Baylor and thanked her for the multiple ways that she helped me on that winding road of getting into school, and she invited me back to give a similar talk [to yours] to introduce people to this career. I think it’s so important for people who are interested in pre-med or other health sciences (who are also usually in Genetics lectures in undergraduate) to be allowed to know that genetic counseling exists out there, because I had never heard of it in undergraduate and it ended up being such a perfect fit for what I was wanting to do. I felt like if I had known about genetic counseling earlier on, I would have just done that as my original track. So, I was really excited to be able to explain to students what Genetic Counseling is, how it is an emerging and growing field, and the plethora of opportunities that are emerging every year in this field. It’s so exciting to be a GC at this time because there are all these new roles that we have to look forward to, and I definitely had a lot of students come up to me afterwards who are really interested in the field and might be future GCs as well!

DE: Well, we will definitely need to be on the lookout for those future GCs! I’m so glad that you’re getting to do that! Do you have any advice or encouragement for a prospective student who is just now hearing about genetic counseling or is interested in potentially pursuing this?

AR: There are so many pieces of advice – hindsight is 20:20. Going into the application process, I didn’t really know what to expect. I would say the biggest piece of advice is to be easy on yourself and give yourself grace because it is so competitive right now! There are way more applicants who programs want to accept than there are available spots. I know that personally, not getting into a program the first time I applied was really hard for me, and a big let down. After having some conversations with Heather [Lucas], I was able to recalibrate my expectations and set my focus where I wanted it to be. She really helped me along the way with encouragement and applications. Another piece of advice is reaching out to other GCs because I wouldn’t have been able to get into a program without so much advice, help, words of encouragement and affirmation from Heather and other GCs I interviewed and talked to to get feedback about my applications and my own journey in figuring out where I would like to end up in my own career. So, making those efforts to network with people and giving myself some grace are the things that I would’ve told myself a few years ago!

DE: That’s fair! It’s advice that was given to me as a prospective student. I myself didn’t get into a program during my first round of applications and it can definitely be disheartening. But I like the idea of “recalibrating” that you mentioned – reaching back out to the programs was one of the biggest things that helped me as an applicant. I’m encouraged by hearing your story and seeing you as a prospective student and now almost a graduate is so exciting, and I know you will do wonderful things for the field!

AR: I’m so excited! It honestly feels like it happened so fast! It’s crazy that I was getting accepted last spring and figuring out the match, and now I’m about to be a second-year student and we are thinking about our mentees and the new cohort which is very exciting!