There have been a lot of talks that we’ve listened to this summer, and all of them have been interesting and given me a lot of perspective on the paths that people have taken into the field of science and specifically, research. I think of all of them, the one that most interested me was Dr. Bejsovec’s. Her talk was on cancer genetics, and particularly the wnt signaling pathway and how it can affect the developmental phenotypes of Drosophilia.
I have found myself very interested in cancer research for a while now, which is why I specifically requested that field when I was accepted into this program. So I guess it’s not surprising that this talk’s topic really piqued my interest. But throughout all the talks that we’ve had this summer, a common thread has been real passion in the speakers for the subjects that they’ve chosen. Though I enjoy the research I am conducting, I worry that I’m not nearly as passionate about it.
But that brings me back to the secondary message of all these talks: that everyone follows a different path to this field. Some people (Dr. Willard, for example) find their way through serendipity, others have always loved science, and a thousand other stories that only share the ending in common. But it all reassures me that there is no “right” path that I’m not on yet– people discover what they want to do at different times, and that’s fine. So whether or not I do end up in research in the far off future, I’ll just sit back and enjoy the ride for now.
