APIDA Student Spotlight: Lisa Wan
In honor of Asian Pacific Islander Desi American (APIDA) Heritage Month, we are highlighting some of our amazing APIDA Pharmacy students.
Name: Lisa Wan
Degree: PharmD
Graduation year: 2023
Q: What inspired you to pursue a degree at the R. Ken Coit College of Pharmacy?
A: What inspired me to pursue a degree was my interest in medicine and the vastly different paths I can take as a pharmacist. I enjoyed my past education during my undergraduate at the University of Arizona so I thought the R. Ken Coit College of Pharmacy would also be very enjoyable.
Q: Do you have any role models that inspire you - at the college or in general?
A: In general, a role model that inspires me regularly is my mom. She has always been an inspiration to me for several reasons. She is a first-generation immigrant who created a home and opportunities in a completely different country. I respect and admire her for her tenacity and perseverance.
Q: Have you experienced any challenges in school? How did you overcome them?
A: Some challenges I’ve faced in school include time management challenges. With the increasing volume of information to study and understand, I found it difficult to organize my time to adjust to my study habits, work, and other co-curricular activities. It’s an ongoing improvement but I’ve learned to block off certain amounts of time for a certain task. I’ve also adopted a habit to complete tasks that would take less than 5 minutes immediately. Other than that, I’ve learned communication and teamwork with both your cohorts and professors are also keys to improving time management skills.
Q: Tell me about your family and community growing up.
A: When I first came to America, I was very young and I also did not speak much English. Naturally, my family found comfort in a foreign place by finding a community that had similar circumstances. We relied on the community to learn about how to survive in our new home and how to make this new foreign place as familiar to us as possible. My mom was able to learn how to cook with these different ingredients and we also tried to find restaurants that were as authentic to the flavors of our home country.
Q: What does being part of the APIDA community mean to you?
A: Being a part of the APIDA community means more to me now than it did when I was younger. Having an APIDA community in the city and cultural support means comfort both emotionally and psychologically. It means more possibilities since immigrants are limited in the number of cities they can and want to settle down in based on the limited cultural comforts a city can provide them. Having an APIDA community can also mean protection. With COVID-19 resulting in devastating and heartbreaking APIDA hate crimes in some cities, an APIDA community can act as a sort of safety blanket to look out for one another and protect one another. Last but not least, an APIDA community can also mean representation. It means seeing APIDA people in movies and television, it means more APIDA people in more career options, it means more APIDA people who are speaking about mental health, disability, and LGBTQ+ issues, and it also means APIDA support in the case of social injustice.
Q: Has being APIDA influenced the way you approach your studies or research?
A: Being APIDA has influenced and made me more open-minded about the possibilities of pharmacists. Which is one big reason why I came up with the idea for the Asian, Pacific Islander, and Desi Student Pharmacist Organization, or APIDSPO. With how large the APIDA community is in Arizona, there’s significant untapped potential. On one hand, to grow the College of Pharmacy's connections with the local APIDA community as well as educate the public on the roles of pharmacy students and pharmacists in the community.
Q: What are your goals after graduation?
A: One of my goals after graduation includes continuing to find opportunities for the APIDA community and pharmacists. I also hope to go into a pharmaceutical career path that would help the greater community and make a bigger impact.
Story by: Gracie Lordi