the beginning

Dear Diary

A Ph.D. in science was not the original plan. When I was little, I always wanted to be a Veterinarian because I love animals. I probably love animals more than people. They are honest and know how to live a life happier than most humans.

In elementary school, this dream of being a vet was overshadowed when I went to Space Camp and decided I wanted to be an astronaut. But this path didn’t last long. When I realized how dangerous the job was, I chickened out. Minus the fear of being strapped to a rocket, how cool would it be to do scientific research in SPACE?!

Reality set in when I was in high school and fell in love with my science classes. However, it definitely wasn’t love at first sight. I really struggled with Biology. There were a few of us in class who would stay after the end of the school day to get extra tutoring from the teacher. I was lucky in that I had a teacher who really cared about our education enough to spend extra time with us. Once things started to click, I was unstoppable.

I was always considered one of the “smart kids” and definitely had people ask to cheat off of me or try to pay me to do their homework. The problem was that school wasn’t demanding or difficult. Not in the sense that I was so good but that they simply didn’t challenge us. At the time, our education wasn’t very competitive with other schools. It was hard to get me to care. It was SO EASY to barely try and get good grades. As a kid who cared more about sports and hanging out with friends, it was hard to get me to make a real effort in school if it wasn’t going to challenge me.

(If any of my old teachers don’t read this… I'm sorry. You all did your best but our school system was flawed.)

In reality, I didn’t commit anything to long-term memory. I was only asked to write a few essays. I was barely taught proper writing skills. I quite literally never had to do homework at home. I was able to finish everything in class. Everyone was.

Looking back, I have been so jealous of people who were really challenged in high school. I never had to read any classic books. I felt left out when shows would reference a novel everyone should’ve read in high school. It felt like one giant inside joke that I would never understand. #FOMO

When I graduated college and had time to start reading again, I started with classics. I know some people will say “ugh but those books are boring or were the worst to read” – and rightfully so, but you knew what someone meant when they said, “That was my white whale.”

I didn’t.

~

College kicked my ass.

Without much guidance from high school, I still didn’t know what I wanted to do but I knew I liked science. Therefore, the only option I was exposed to was medicine. Yup, I was your classic “I like science, so I am going pre-med” college kid. I was also blinded by the fact that school was so “easy”.

I was NOT ready. Obviously. I got several C’s in my first ear and had a very rude awakening when I was asked to write a basic essay. I didn’t know how to write something even mildly acceptable for the college level.

Unfortunately, saving my GPA at this point was nearly impossible. Even with extra resources, like as getting help from the Writing Center and finding a tutor for every one of my classes, trying to counterbalance my first- and second-year grades was a strenuous feat.

(I know it is taboo to talk about GPA but I can’t stand when people say “Oh I had a terrible GPA” and it was like a 3.75. Just stop. With a lot of hard work, I managed to pull a 3.2 in the end, which was not great but it was enough.)

Even when I was getting destroyed by this abrupt change, I still enjoyed my science classes. I loved what I was learning, even if I couldn’t show it on an exam. It didn’t come naturally at first. But once I started to understand, it was like the skies had parted and I was introduced to an entirely new universe. I looked at the world around me through a completely different lens.

Now THIS was love.

I will always credit the moment I truly fell for science to a day in my Genetics course. What a fun class. You learn the essentials of how our DNA functions and then you learn EVERYTHING that can go wrong. So much can go wrong.

A student in the class asked a question and Dr. N simply responded, “We don’t know”.

Not “I don’t know.”
But “WE don’t know.”

There are times when the professor doesn’t have an answer but can help you find it. No - In this case, the entire field of science did not have an answer.

~ WHAT?! What do you mean we don’t know?!?!?! ~

The four-year-old in me was losing her mind because EVERY QUESTION HAS AN ANSWER. I just couldn’t accept this.

in the voice of a mad scientist: We have reached the EDGE OF KNOWLEDGE!!!

Oh, now I KNOW what I want to be when I grow up. A freaking research scientist, that’s what.

Naturally, I decided to join a research lab in something I enjoyed, Organic Chemistry. I studied ligand chelators as a means to disrupt amyloid beta plaques that build up in the human brain of someone with Alzheimer’s disease. And BOY did I love it.

I had started considering scientific research as a career path, but when I brought the idea up to my family, I got the “Oh but you’ve always wanted to be a physician” response. Along with the “there aren’t really any jobs in research” feedback.

(I obviously know now how untrue that last statement was...)

So, I continued down the pre-med track until it brought me more stress than excitement and finally spoke to my undergraduate PI, Dr. P, about research careers. I was enlightened and could feel the stress leave my body as she mentioned jobs I could easily see myself enjoying. I still had a passion for medicine; just a different side of it.

Feeling confident enough to approach my family about this new plan, they were incredibly supportive and went out of their way to help me make connections to figure out what I needed to do in order to start down this completely foreign path. I mean I was in my senior year. I had spent years preparing myself and my resume for medical school. I was deep into the application process. I had 7 letters of recommendation, taken the MCAT, filled out primary applications, and started filling out secondary applications/getting interviews.

(Actually, I found out later that I had gotten into medical school, but there was no chance in hell I was turning back on my decision.)

It felt idiotic to scratch all of that and start over. A waste of my time, my professor’s time, and everyone who wrote me a recommendation letter. It also felt like a huge waste of money. Do you know how expensive med school applications are?? And now, I was considering throwing that away and spending even more money on graduate school applications. So that I could become a research scientist??

It was so last minute. I had no idea what I even needed for graduate school applications. Where did I want to go? What programs do I apply to? What does my resume need? What field do I want to study?

After making a few connections and talking with Dr. P, I decided to stick with Chemistry and get my feet wet in a Master’s program. Since everything was so last minute, I wanted to make sure that this was really what I wanted to do before walking wildly unprepared into a Ph.D.

(One of my favorite comics: @strangeplanet)

I was definitely nervous, but I also felt comfortable walking into this new world.
A place I knew I belonged.
I was home.

MDC
12.20.21