9 Years in Science

               I’m going to do something a little different this week.  I’m going to actually use a blog for what it was intended: a place to put thoughts and reflections.  This coming October marks my nine year voyage as a professional scientist (plus 4 years in college makes me 13 years in science!).  As I move into my tenth year, I realize that I don’t know everything about science (judging by my wide-eyed reaction to my boss’s recent words “Want to write a grant?”) but that I know far more than I’d ever give myself credit for (my list for potential blog posts is really long).  But, since readers come here every week to see what I’m talking about, I thought you’d like to know a little bit more about me and, perhaps, my experiences in science.

                I never intended to become a scientist.  At least, I don’t think so now that I’m looking back.  In college, when it came time to pick a major, I was faced with two normal choices: French or chemistry?  I was good at French and mediocre at chemistry.  However, I desperately wanted a major of which I could be proud.  I wanted to look at my diploma and think how awesome it was that I did it (imagine my horrible shock when, at graduation, my diploma did not have my major written on it).  More importantly, I wanted to feel that I got the absolute most out of my college education.  I’m not knocking French majors, here – I’m just saying that I personally felt I could do so much more.   And so, I chose chemistry.  I believe my parents were worried.

                I probably should have been, as well.  While I did just fine in Introductory Chemistry, Organic Chemistry was not my forte.  On my fifth exam when I amazingly wrote all the correct answers to a set of five reactions, my professor wrote on my paper “Congrats!!  You finally did it!”  Yeah.  Lab was also not my strong point (writing an abstract was truly mysterious) and I relied heavily on my lab mate (thank you, Jess!!) to help me through.  However, I loved Physical Chemistry and the higher level chemistry courses I had to take. My later college science years were much better than my earlier ones.

                It was also during college that I had my first run-in with what I like to call “The Old Boys Club of Science.”  I am not stupid.  Science was dominated by men for decades before my time.  Of course there are plenty of women who made important contributions (Roslind Franklin, who never gets any credit and Marie Curie, who gets a lot of credit, for example) but professors were predominantly older males.  Early on, I had thought about becoming a physics major.  Upon meeting with an older, male astronomy professor at my undergraduate university, I was promptly told I was too stupid to be a physics major. 

 Oh man.  Since I was only 18, I really didn’t know how to respond to this and took him at his word.  By my senior year, I knew (a little) better and took his class.  When I got an A, I promptly wrote a review of his teaching and explained that no one should be told they are too stupid to do anything.  

In truth, I don’t know if he said that because I was a woman or if he really thought my grades weren’t good enough.  I do, however, have strong evidence to the former.  Really, though, it doesn’t matter.  The attitude of “You aren’t good enough” should not pervade science (and I'll happily report that I rarely ran into this attitude in chemistry at my undergrad school or in the years since) no matter what the root of feeling is.  Unfortunately, I let this comment bother me for a very long time.

                When I finished college, I had no idea what I was doing.  I mean really – who does?  As with most things that have happened since May 2002, I fell ass-backwards into my next opportunity.  I was only qualified to do one thing: work in a lab (although I’ll debate with you about my level of “qualification” there).  Three months after graduation, I found myself working in a lab at a rather prestigious hospital for a rather prestigious university and mostly wondering how the hell I ended up there. 

                Two years later, I went to graduate school for the wrong reasons.  Everyone will tell you that you should go to graduate school because you have a career goal that a Ph.D. will help you achieve.  You shouldn’t go without thinking about your long term future.  Well, I went because I wondered if I could.  I wondered if my brain would work like all those professors who taught me and the scientists that worked with me after college.  I truly thought they were brilliant and that I was quite the peon.  

                Clearly, a lot of people knew something about me that I didn’t because my ultimate decision came down to: The Johns Hopkins University or the University of Pennsylvania?  (If you read the “About Me” tab, you’ll see where I chose.)  Classes baffled me a bit, but they only lasted one year.  After that, I worked in a lab every day for next five years.  I loved the lab.

I had my own projects, I ran my own experiments, I thought through all my problems and I troubleshooted everything I was working on.  I learned that I didn’t need Jess and it was okay that I didn’t pass Orgo with an A.  None of that mattered any more.  What did matter is that I could look at the problem, think critically about it and come to an answer that was supported by other research and my own experiences.

Graduate school wasn’t about learning science, it was about learning how to learn.  At that level, you are the expert on your projects and no one else knows what you know.  You have to trust yourself and know how to find the right answers because there is no book in which to look.  When I finally figured out the game, I was amazed.  It was so empowering when I understood that, even though my beginning was rough and I felt for sure I could never do it, I had the skills in me all along.  Not only that, but I really enjoyed my work and felt like I was doing rather well with it.

  By the end of my six year graduate school epic journey, I knew I was no different than all those professors that I had so revered in college.  I thought their brains were fundamentally different than mine and that I could only hope to be a little bit like them.  In the end, I was them.  

I tried to make note of these realizations on the dedication page of my thesis by writing:

Why, anybody can have a brain… Back where I come from, we have universities, seats of great learning, where men go to become great thinkers.  And when they come out, they think deep thoughts and with no more brains than you have.

Fleming, V. (1939) The Wizard of Oz

            Or… a more contemporary quote: “Anyone can cook!” – Chef Gusteau

Rosalind Franklin: in short, she provided the data to James Watson and Francis Crick that allowed them to determine that DNA was a double helix.  Her contribution tends to be overlooked.  There is some controversy surrounding Watson/Crick and Franklin and who really discovered what when.  Coinciding with the 50^th anniversary of publishing the structure of DNA, Brenda Maddox published “Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA,” which discussed Franklin’s life and work during those times.

Marie Curie: She loved radioactivity.  Okay, she was awarded two Nobel prizes for her work in physics and chemistry and was the University of Paris’s first female professor.

REFERENCES

Fleming C. (1939) The Wizard of Oz.

Bird, B and Pinkava, J. (2007) Ratatouille.

Me, myself, and I – which has absorbed a lot of knowledge in the past nine years and even before!