EPISODE 4: AROUBAH IQBAL

March 27, 2024

Interview by Erica Thomas

Photo by Ivan Dominguez

Edited by Erica Thomas and Michael Fortunato

So I think the obvious place to start is with Bay Ridge. 

Absolutely. Literally, if you don't know I'm from Bay Ridge, you don't know me. I mention Bay Ridge at least once every day. If there’s someone from Bay Ridge, it’s me. 

What’s your train stop?

Last stop on the R train. 95th St. - Bay Ridge. That’s me. 

But you weren’t born in Brooklyn, correct?

Nope. I was born in Pakistan and came here when I was two. I don’t really remember anything about the move but the story’s pretty cool. Back in the 90s, in certain countries in Asia, they had a visa lottery. You could apply and if you won, you would get a visa to a participating country of your choosing. Every year my dad would apply. There was a fee and we weren’t the wealthiest people so only he would apply. But every year, he’d never win. After I was born in 1998, my parents both decided to apply and the first time my mom entered, she won! Right after I was born, she won the lottery. After the whole process, two years later, we're in America. My parents say that I’m their lucky child. 

Considering the sheer size of the South Asian diaspora, this might be a question with obvious answers, but have you ever asked your parents why they wanted to move to the U.S.?

I don't think I have! That’s actually a really interesting question. My assumption is, like many people from the area, they probably thought America meant a better life. My parents are the only ones in our family that have made it out of Pakistan. Basically my entire family is back home. It’s definitely interesting to think about what makes people want to or need to leave the place where they spent their whole life or started their family. My dad was 33 when he came here and my mom was 29. I’m about to be 26 in a few months and I can’t imagine just packing up my life being like, “You know what - let me just go somewhere else.” It’s an insane prospect and I have a lot of respect for my parents for pulling it off.

So you guys moved to the States. Did you move straight to Brooklyn? 

Yup, straight to Brooklyn. The exact apartment we have right now is the same apartment we've been living in for the past, what, 24 years? Yeah. My entire life has been in that two-bedroom apartment in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. 

Tell me about your earliest memories in Bay Ridge. 

I would probably say memories of me in pre-kindergarten getting ready in the morning. My dad would put me into the uniform - this white collared shirt and a plaid skirt. And he’d do my hair. He’d put me in little pigtails and walk me to school. I was a nerd from the get-go. I have this one memory of us being slightly late to my pre-K class and they had already locked the doors. I was at the door hitting it and crying just like, “Let me in, let me in!” And they never let me in. We ended up just walking back home and my dad got me a donut as a treat to make me less sad about missing pre-K [laughs].  

So you have four siblings. And you’re the middle child?

Yup!

What’s that been like?

It feels exactly what being a middle child seems like in every story, show, movie. I definitely felt too young to be taken seriously by my older sisters, but also too old to not have any responsibilities. I was put in charge of getting my younger siblings to school in the morning but, to my older sisters, I was still seen as one of the younger ones.

What was it like having four other siblings in a two-bedroom apartment? What were the logistics here?

It’s pretty funny. My parents have their own bedroom and in the other bedroom we had one bunk bed and one queen size bed. My oldest sister would usually be in the bottom bunk, my second oldest sister would be in the top bunk, and then my two youngest siblings would be on the queen. Now you would ask “Where’s Aroubah?” [laughs] It sounds pretty bad but I basically would claim a spot wherever I could. Sometimes I’d be in one of the bunks with my sister. Sometimes my younger sister would go sleep with my parents, so I’d take her spot on the queen. I’ve gotten super good at sleeping on couches and even on the floor! It sounds crazy but I actually find carpeted floors very comforting. 

Was that hard for you? Being the middle child and having to be the one to just find a spot wherever you could?

Yes and no. I would say no because I understood that we only had so many things. We had such a limited space and I was fine with it. Everyone had to make sacrifices in some way. If there’s anything I was bitter about, it's that I really, really wanted a desk! Like I said, I was a huge nerd and really cared about school so if there’s one thing that I was bitter about, it was literally not having a desk to do work on. That’s all I wanted [laughs]. Eventually my dad bought me one of those TV folding dinner tables, but that was the one thing I was salty about for sure. 

How does it feel now getting to have your own room and your own space?

To be honest, it’s kind of been weird. This is the first time in my life that I have my own room and I have my own full-size bed and I’m still adjusting to not having to share. I feel like when you see a bed, normally people go lay in the middle. Not me. I lay on one side. My friends have actually made fun of me for it and it’s honestly just because I’m so used to having to leave enough space for another person. I have my side of the bed… I don’t know about that other side; that’s a whole different world over there. 

What were you like as a kid?

I was just really into school. My mom said it was super weird. She would tell me that when I was a kid, I would come home, take off my shoes in the hallway, sit on the floor, and take my books out and start doing my work right there [laughs]..

How did your parents respond to that? Did they encourage you or mostly leave you alone?

I feel like I definitely had the total opposite experience of most brown people I know. It's funny because when I was younger, I would tell people that I wanted to be a doctor and everyone would assume it’s because my parents were pushing me into it. But honestly, my parents were happy with whatever I wanted to do. I’m not going to say being focused on academics came naturally to me, but there was always just some part of me that really liked school and just getting my work done at that age.

We’re talking a lot about how much of a nerd you were growing up, but I also know that I’ve definitely seen you throw a football.  

You for sure have! I guess when I wasn’t in school or doing homework, I spent a lot of time playing sports with my friends. I put a lot of work into getting good grades and playing sports, football in particular, was just my way of blowing off steam. Football was probably the main thing about high school that I remember enjoying the most. Actually, when I got to high school, girls’ flag football had just been introduced the year before and it was still something that a lot of people were trying to get comfortable with - the idea of girls playing this sport. Regardless, my freshman year, there were over 125 girls that tried out, myself included. I remember just being so excited that there was all buzz around it and just thinking about how cool it all was. The coach really did not want freshmen on the team, but I ended up being one of four freshmen that actually made it on. I was so hyped about it. I think I surprised a lot of people. There’s definitely something about being a kind of nerdy brown girl playing sports that seems to throw people off. It feels unexpected. I was already academically inclined, but I never wanted to just stay in that bubble or be defined by just that. I love playing football. 

Tell me about how that influenced which high school you decided to attend.

In New York City, after middle school, we had to take the SHSAT. It’s this assessment that’s used to determine if you could get admission to one of the city's Specialized High Schools. I did pretty well on that exam and got into Brooklyn Tech, which was super exciting. At the same time, there was another school about ten blocks away from my apartment called Fort Hamilton High School, where I had also applied and got accepted into their Honors Program. So now I had to choose between the two. For most people, this wouldn’t even be up for debate - Brooklyn Tech was the obvious choice. What really swayed my decision though was the fact that Fort Hamilton was so close to me, and the fact that they had a brand new girls’ flag football program, which Brooklyn Tech did not. I remember there were kids in my middle school who had studied so hard and who were so confused that I had declined the offer to go to a Specialized High School. But I wanted to explore sports, I wanted to explore something outside of academics and I felt like Fort Hamilton was going to be able to give me that. So I chose Fort Hamilton, tried out for the team, made it on, and stayed on for all four years. I started out as a wide receiver, but I’m really good at throwing the ball too. I eventually became the quarterback and captain. Looking back, not only did I excel academically, but I feel like having that opportunity to play on a girls’ flag football team gave me so much and I’m really happy I had it in me to stick by my decision to go to Fort Hamilton.  

So after high school, you go to Brooklyn College. What made you decide to stay in Brooklyn as opposed to taking off across the country or something?

My whole life up until I came to NYMC for medical school was in Brooklyn. My middle school was one block away from my house. My high school was about ten blocks away. And yeah, for college I went to CUNY Brooklyn College. Sometimes I do think about what it could have been like if I had decided to go to a whole new place, but I think I realized I had something really special when it came to my community and my support system. Being around my loved ones has consistently been the biggest, most important thing for me and it was why I was happy to stay in Brooklyn. Some of the friends I had in middle school are still my best friends now (shout out to them!). I still talk to them every day. Being with the people that I know I can lean on gave me a sort of comfort that was incredibly important to me and I can honestly say I never once regretted my decision to stick around. 

But then you had to venture outside of Brooklyn to come here. 

Yup. Once I finished undergrad, I did feel like that's when reality kind of hit. I was the only one of my friends who wanted to pursue medicine so now I was a lone soldier. I had to take the MCAT and I had to apply to medical school on my own. And who knows where I was going to end up. Med school admission is always a tricky process and I’m glad I ended up in Westchester because I could just as easily have ended up thousands of miles away. I won’t lie though, even being at a place forty miles from home felt shocking at first and it was definitely something that I had to come to terms with. I had never even been to Westchester before. Even with my parents, they were so used to having me around all the time and now things were about to be so different. I remember them trying to figure it all out like, “Are you gonna live there, are you gonna stay at home?” And I was trying to think, “Do I try to take the train up all the way from Bay Ridge?” 

How did that decision end up panning out?

That whole situation was so crazy. My parents were thinking about how I had never gone away from home, never been away, never had to live on a campus, never had to have a roommate, what if the first time I had a roommate, we just didn’t end up getting along. All sorts of things. So we decided my first year that I was going to drive from Brooklyn. My family didn’t have a car, but, shout out to my parents, they used some of their savings to buy me one so that I could drive back and forth. I’m incredibly grateful to them for that. I’ll be honest, it was pretty tough having to commute back and forth all the time and there was a lot of trial and error that year. But I’m happy I did that because I felt like I was slowly able to get more comfortable with the idea of being away from home for the first time in my life. Eventually, at some point during the year, I realized that I needed to kind of pull the trigger and do what’s best for my career and find more time to sleep and breathe and relax. So I moved on campus my second year and it’s been a pretty good ride since then. 

Do you feel like you’ve been able to find or create your own support system here?

Oh yeah, definitely. I honestly don't think I would have gotten to the middle of third year without my support system here. I feel like especially in the medical field, you kind of need people to get you through it. Even little things like sharing notes or Anki decks goes a long way.  And when the stress and doubt gets to you, you need people and I feel like the friends I’ve found here have really been those shoulders that I could lean on for these past few years. That truly has meant a lot to me. We don’t really get to have our families here. We don’t have our hometown friends here. So I’m really thankful to find that depth of friendship and care in my circle here.

Why do you want to be a doctor?

I have always wanted to be a doctor. Everytime someone is like, “Could you see yourself doing something else?” The answer is always no. I enjoy what comes with this field. I enjoy the collaborative nature of it and there’s no greater satisfaction than helping a patient. Growing up, I’ve always seen my parents go to doctors for things like diabetes or their blood pressure. At some point I realized that I wanted to be the person helping people like my parents. That’s what I wanted for my future. 

What’s one future goal of yours that’s not medicine or career-related?

I would say to be a mom. I have two nieces. They’re eight and seven years old right now and I have this necklace with their names on it in Urdu. I love them more than anyone else in my life. I’ve always liked kids and I think they like me too. If I could envision the future, I would see myself having a kid or two. As much as I feel dedicated to this career, I also do want to have a family and have children and have that fulfillment in that way as well. 

What’s your proudest moment?

I’m sure you get a lot of support from your extended family back in Pakistan as well. 

Absolutely. Like I said before, my parents were the only ones in America. Also, no one else in my family is in the medical field. It’s tough being on the other side of the world because it kind of means that I don’t really get to have as strong of a relationship with the rest of my family as I could have had if we were closer. But despite that, I get so much support from them. My mom talks to our family back home a lot and she’s always telling me about how proud my family is of me and how they’re always rooting for me and my success because it means so much to them too. I remember one time when my mom visited Pakistan, my grandmother recorded a video of herself on her phone for me just being like, “I’m constantly praying for you. Everyone is praying for you. We’re so proud of you. We know that you’re going to be an amazing doctor. Hurry up and finish school so we can tell everyone that our granddaughter is a doctor.” I remember my mom showing me that and I just started tearing up because there’s just an entire community that’s kind of supporting me even when I don’t realize it. Even when I’m not thinking about it, that support is always there. I feel very grateful to be able to do something that my family feels so proud of and I feel so privileged to have their love and blessings. I feel like we’re obviously on this journey and doing this for ourselves, but we’re also doing it for them.  

If you could give a shout out to anyone on campus right now, who would it be?

Who am I shouting out? Oh man, I don’t want to leave anyone out. Hmm. I’ll say, shout out to my best friends on campus - you know who you are. That’s good right?

Yeah, that's good. 

Contact Aroubah at aiqbal6@student.nymc.edu.

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