Scientific Origin Story
This week, our blog post topic was to discuss our scientific origin story. I’ve talked about this a bit in the past (see posts here and here) in the context of a general introduction of myself, but today I want to highlight a few key vignettes representative of the journey to being the ¬̴̞̺̕·̴̶̨̨̤͓̔͊͑̑̕-̴̜͖̓͆.̴̗̕͠-̴̡̲̓̑-year-old PhD candidate you see (read?) before you.
To be honest, I have a really boring “origin story” in science. I was always interested in science from a really young age—I’ve mentioned the “At Your Fingertips” children’s book series before, which were some of my first exposures to all the fascinating things in, on, and around our world that I can remember:
As I mentioned in my post about my visit to Arecibo, Carl Sagan’s Contact (both the movie and the book) were some of my favourite movies as a pre-teen, and deeply influenced my decision to focus on space as a scientific passion. I also went to several different science summer day camps throughout elementary school, competed in robotics competitions and science fairs, went fossil hunting on the beaches near my home, and did amateur experiments with chemistry and rocketry. Basically, I was the most stereotypical nerd you could possibly imagine.
At the same time, I was also a relatively good student (at least, until around my teenage years when I started severely struggling with undiagnosd ADHD), so my opportunities were generally not limited by academics. While I just barely squeezed by into an undergrad program
From here I have a bit of an unfair advantage compared to my other labmates, in that I’ve told some of this story before as part of an event for Story Collider, the podcast/storytelling event series focusing on how science has shaped people’s lives. However, in that retelling I focused mainly on the proximal events during my early undergrad years that carried me through a relatively difficult time
After that, there were many mentors and peers who helped me navigate the path from undergrad all the way to my Masters and eventually a PhD… but that’s a story for another time.
Till then, -xoxo gossip grad ☾⋆⁺₊⋆