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Thursday, November 16
by Laurel
My lab partner Camilla and I spent a net 6 hours or so working on our chemistry lab after performing the actual lab. We met three separate times over the past weekend to make sense of our recorded masses and spectroscopic levels. And finally, Monday night at about 11, after thinking the whole lab had gone awry, I ran down my hall and down the stairs to Camilla's room and exclaimed, "Six ammonia!" And then we laughed, we danced, and we high-fived until we were all partied-out. I returned to my room with a smile plastered to my face, for no other reason than "I found six ammonia!"
And it's this seemingly bizarre "a-hah" moment that many scientists live for, which can often be late at night, alone at a lab bench. These moments may come few and far between, but that's what makes them so precious. When I visited Pfizer Pharmaceuticals a few summers ago, a researcher explained, "Scientists fail 95% of the time. This is normal." But that other 5%, apparently, is the "juice," or the breakthrough, the epiphany. Not only are epiphanies rewarding after countless hours (days, months, years, decades...) of research, but often a scientific breakthrough can be the "missing piece" in other scientific problems, which creates a "domino effect of juice," if you will. And not only that, but often these breakthroughs benefit humanity as a whole, most obviously in medicine. This pairing of altruism and discovery is why many researchers do what they do, and goodness, it's inspiring.
It's that inspiring passion I was sure I wanted to pursue here at Macalester when I contemplated my next four collegiate years during the summer. But there are so many more departments and seemingly-infinite classes to take here as compared to high school, I'm sure other departments have equally interesting and inspiring aspects. I realize now that my passion for science has been fueled by my past positive experiences in high school, like my great chem teacher and my awesome summer in a research program. And since high school course selection is more limited, I figure that's why I became so interested in "chemistry" in high school rather than "art history" or "women's gender studies" or "quantum physics." And since there are great teachers and resources here, I suppose I can become engrossed in just about any discipline. So although this is wonderful, it leads to indecision not because of a reluctance to take any classes but a desire to take every class.
Now that we're nearing registration time for next semester, I want to take something I wouldn't have been able to take in high school, like Ethics or Art Survey of Japan or Evolutionary Psychology or... Underwater Basket Weaving? I can dream about the last one, but yup, that's the idea... the options are seemingly limitless. And therefore, this leaves me in a conundrum: I'm yet another undecided first-year. "Oh, it's okay to not have a specific major yet," they'll tell you. Yes, it is, but if you know what you want to major in, it doesn't hurt to start fulfilling those requirements, because, well, you'll need to eventually.
This leads me to wonder, "is there a specific major that will make me the happiest?" Just like I could envision myself happy at a few different colleges, I'd assume I could be happy with a few different different majors. But which one will make me the happiest, and how can I know? It's like Nietzsche's philosophy of eternal return: if man only has the opportunity to try one path, to make one decision, he cannot return to take a different path, and then compare the two lives. Bummer.
So I'll go home for Thanksgiving soon, hopefully philosophize further about all of this over some turkey with my family, whom I miss very much (despite what I said before). Maybe I'll just have to take all my favorite classes and create myself a major like "trophy wifedom." Ah, who knows.
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