As a new technician in February 2021, I was excited at the prospect of starting a Ph.D. program in August that would help me learn an entirely new set of skills. I would have never imagined that I'd join a university that specialized in clinical trials, neuroscience, medicine, immunology, etc. Up to that point, I had been a field person- working long summer hours, getting dirty and sweaty collecting ticks, counting mosquitoes, wrangling fish, and trapping mammals. Why did I choose to go to a "medical school"? It was a question that I would ask myself weekly for the rest of the year.
I jumped into the program the way I jump into most things: with excitement, a little nervousness, and the knowledge that I would find a way to succeed. The thing is, I usually bite off more than I can chew, but somehow I find a way to chew it anyway. Having never lived outside of my parents' house before, in 2016, I loaded my bike into a Greyhound bus to research fish in Missouri for a whole summer. I then moved to Tennessee in 2017 for a year, and then Ithaca, NY for two, then Delaware for 6 months, and then to Syracuse for another year. I hiked 272 miles from Massachusetts to Canada by myself with no rest days because I had to make a deadline, and I had never hiked solo before that. In 2020, I enrolled into a Spanish-only speaking class during my masters program with no prior experience besides a year of Duolingo. I passed, just like I passed my ecological modeling course that was for engineers and that entailed modeling with differential equations, a subject I avoided in high school when I opted out of calculus for more art classes. How challenging would a Microbiology and Immunology Ph.D. be?
What I hadn't taken into account was the emotional toll the program would have on me. The hardest part wasn't Foundations of Cell and Molecular Biology which I didn't have the prerequisites for, nor was it my assigned first-year Ph.D. mentor telling me that I should have never been accepted into the program. It was the fact I was stripped of the environment that made me happy: the field. Being surrounded by like-minded individuals was more important than I ever realized, and, in this medical university, I felt like a mix between an intruder and a prisoner. I did not belong there, and I couldn't relate to anyone at all. I traded in my muddy, khaki field pants for slacks and a lab coat, the sunlight for incandescent bulbs. Not to mention, my research was going to transition to animal model research: infecting mice with tick-borne viruses to observe virus-host-tick interactions and performing brain dissections. Typically waffling between vegetarian and veganism, I would have rather saved the poor mice.
Aside from being in an environment that was not compatible with myself as a person, I was now faced with a decision: to quit or to stay. I have always muscled through the decisions I've made. This Ph.D. program was going to be hard, and I knew that. But, was it worth 4 to 5 years of my life? Was this even going to help me in the future? Did I actually bite off more than I could chew, for real this time? I wanted to stay to prove my first-year Ph.D. mentor wrong and to not have to admit to myself that I couldn't do something. I also felt guilty for backing out, and I didn't want to disappoint my family, PI advisor, and colleagues.
If you have a gut feeling you shouldn't be somewhere or that something isn't for you, then change it. Leave if you can. There is something else meant for you, and you won't regret it.
Six weeks of therapy later, I had a major breakthrough with getting past my own mental blocks. So, maybe I was more of a perfectionist than I thought, and maybe I have a tendency to set goals that I will never meet. I know that I need to do what makes me happy, and while that sounds obvious, I finally realized what was essential to me and what I couldn't compromise. So no, I would not be infecting mice in a BSL-3 laboratory, or running endless gels, or pipetting my thumbs off. I would be out there in the forest, in the streams, in the fields. I would be protecting the environment and our natural resources, and I would be an advocate for climate justice. When I came to this conclusion, my spirits truly lifted and I felt happier than I had in months. The more people I talked to about this, the more I discovered I had a lot of support. Perhaps this wasn't a bad idea after all?
The decision to bike across the United States was quick and developed over two days. I'd leave at spring break, and I wouldn't return. The Southern Tier Bike Route would take me from San Diego, CA to St. Augustine, FL, skirting across the entire south United States from coast to coast. Naturally, I've never bike packed before, and I only ever did one overnight trip. This would work out like everything else had...right? Of course, I reached out to Casey, my van-life bud living in Colorado. She was stoked and said yes to joining me, of course. And I needed this, badly. I wanted nothing more than to power myself across my very own country with nothing but a bike and my own legs (okay, and supplies). I wanted to experience the states that I had never been to before, and I wanted to feel the sun on my face. I would be free, and 2022 would be MY year. I knew what I wanted, and I would finally go for it.
Unemployment would be short of course; I can now guarantee that my career trajectory is finally taking the turn it needed to, even though I have to face some retaliation from my boss (further solidifying my decision to leave). With no regrets, I am excited to announce that I am leaving Upstate Medical and joining a new Ph.D. program at SUNY ESF, the college of environmental science and forestry, to do research on climate change, carbon sequestration, and wetlands.
I guess all I can say is this: if you have a gut feeling you shouldn't be somewhere or that something isn't for you, then change it. Leave if you can. There is something else meant for you, and you won't regret it.
More updates will follow on the bike trip.
Cheers!
Comments