How did I get here?
This is the story of how I ultimately decided to pursue a PhD in organic chemistry. You might say that my journey was a bit circuitous…
I attended three different schools on my path to my bachelors degree, beginning at University of California, Santa Barbara in 2010. At the outset of my college journey my major was undeclared life sciences—I knew that I loved biology and that I probably wanted to go to medical school, I just wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to major in. Unfortunately, several factors led me to move home after my first quarter, and I attended San Diego Mesa College that following winter semester. I spent three semesters at Mesa completing all of my general education requirements in order to TAG (transfer admission guarantee) to University of California, San Diego in fall of 2012. While applying, I had a second opportunity to choose my major. I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, and I had seen that the biology majors at UCSD were impacted. On a whim I decided to pursue a biochemistry/chemistry degree from the chemistry department.
September, 2012
Standing outside of Revelle college on my first day at UCSD!
As a transfer student, I felt extremely behind compared to my classmates. I was overwhelmed with juggling my courses and working at a restaurant in my spare time (I even accidentally slept through an organic chemistry midterm my first quarter 😅). My mindset at the time was “just get through today, you can deal with your next steps later.” But as the weeks passed, it felt like I was never able to take the time to actually deal with my next steps. I had a vague sense that I wanted to attend some sort of graduate or professional school after undergrad, but I wasn’t sure what I actually wanted to do. I considered medicine, pharmacy, optometry... but none of those felt right.
I made it all the way to winter quarter of my fourth year without knowing what I wanted to do next. That quarter, I was enrolled in an organic chemistry lab and metabolic biochemistry class, and for the first time in undergrad I was taking classes that I absolutely loved. Taking these two courses concurrently was really enlightening for me—I was able to go into lab and learn the fundamentals of organic synthesis, and then head into a class where I learned about how our body builds and breaks down molecules on its own. I found that I loved understanding how our bodies work on a molecular level. More specifically, I loved learning about the underlying concepts behind why molecules react the way they do. Though I had a rocky start in my organic chemistry lab (demonstrated by my underwhelming score of 7/75 on the second midterm), with the help of my extremely patient TA, I was able to pull it together and get the highest score on the final exam that quarter. This was a pivotal moment for me, because after several quarters of feeling completely overwhelmed and discouraged, I finally believe that I had the potential to succeed in a STEM based career.
a story in 3 parts
Another critical experience that quarter was becoming friends with a classmate who was working in a research lab. She told me about her undergraduate research experience and her plan for applying to grad school that fall. This led me to want to learn more about potential career options with a PhD, and I enrolled in a careers in chemistry seminar. During that seminar, spring of my 4th year of undergrad, was the first time anyone had ever told me that PhDs in chemistry were fully funded! This was also the first time I realized how important research experience was for actually getting into graduate school… of which I had none. I had a meeting with the professor hosting the seminar to see what I could do about my lack of experience, and he told me that I could try to join a lab, but professors may not be interested in taking on a 4th going on 5th year.
There were so many things I didn’t realize until late into my 4th year, and I was scrambling to catch up. I already knew that I needed to stay an extra two quarters to finish all of my degree requirements, so I used that time to hunt for extra curricular activities that would help me decide between graduate and professional school. I was lucky enough to hear about an internship at a small biotech company through a friend, which I started summer after my 4th year. At the same time, I was chosen to volunteer in the same day surgery department at UCSD health systems and worked at both positions in my penultimate quarter at UCSD.
Throughout my journey I’ve found that sometimes the best way to figure out what you want to do is to actually figure out what you don’t want to do. Turns out that after volunteering at the hospital for one quarter, I knew that I didn’t want to be a doctor (or at least that kind of doctor). I found that my experience volunteering felt far too similar to my experiences working in customer service and that working in a hospital setting did not allow me to solve the problems I was interested in. My internship, on the other hand, helped me realize that I actually wanted to pursue a PhD in organic chemistry. I recognized that I was interested in designing and synthesizing molecules with potentially interesting biological activity. So that’s what I did. I interned at that biotech company, was hired on as a research assistant once I (officially) graduated undergrad in 2015, and applied to grad school with that research experience under my belt.
Five years later, I officially have my PhD in chemistry from UC Davis and I’m now working as a postdoctoral researcher doing exactly what I set out do. It may have taken me 3 schools and 5 years of undergrad to figure it out, but I ended up exactly where I thought I wanted to be!