How did THAT lead to THIS? On Belonging, Drift, and Finding Your Place

Why on earth am I here? This is the thought that kept running through my brain as I watched the cardiac procedure taking place. A few weeks before, I had been teaching psychology, and now here I was wearing scrubs for the first time in my life, surrounded by a ton of medical equipment and a flurry of activity. I tried my best to just stay out of the way.

This was part of my orientation as a new data scientist so that I could learn the clinical context in which I was working. As I came to understand, the day-to-day activities of the role are actually quite similar to what I did before (coding, analyzing data, writing reports), and as time went on, the new role didn't feel so jarring. However, the sudden change in environment that I experienced in the first few weeks really took some getting used to, and even now four years later I find myself questioning my sense of belonging at times.

This becomes especially apparent on the occasions when I am asked to present to the department. When most people giving similar presentations describe their background, they'll talk about the other medical areas they worked in, and how that led to their interest in their current work. I instead mention how I studied reading development in children and did research in schools, and I can just see the question marks popping into their heads. How did that lead to this?

I think this impact on belonging is one of the consequences of drift. And what I'm wondering is whether addressing it requires some updating in the stories we tell about ourselves. Perhaps a throughline isn't just about what we do and our underlying why, but also about how we want to show up in our work. For me, this looks like being someone who can bridge different worlds, who understands what it's like to approach a field from the outside. It's about finding the unique perspective I bring. And it's about discovering new things to be curious about, even when the path that brought me here wasn't the one I planned.

I suspect I'm not alone in this. Many researchers find themselves in rooms where their background doesn't fit the expected narrative: not academic enough, not clinical enough, not technical enough.

Maybe a sense of belonging isn't about fitting the expected narrative. Maybe it's something we construct by claiming the story that connects where we've been to where we are, even when that story looks nothing like anyone else's.