Some Not-So-Sick Life Advice

On my (probably futile, but nevertheless entertaining) quest to figure out what I want to do with my future, I sat down and had a discussion with Dr. Julie a few weeks ago. I wanted to know how she, who was fully qualified to become a cancer research biologist, ended up as a high school teacher.

The answer was pretty simple: she’d missed kids. Dr. Julie had a teaching job at a middle school before attending grad school, and once she had received her pHD, she realized that she wished to go back to it. That original teaching job at a middle school was supposed to just be a holdover while she figured out what she wanted to do with her life; it turns out that it was the answer to her question!

Above: A meme I made out of a diagram from Immunology (which I'm taking with Dr Julie).

Everyone was shocked when Dr. Julie, who could’ve gone on to have a successful career in cancer research, left for teaching. But teaching is what makes her happiest, and I don’t think she regrets the decision to leave academia.

When it comes to my life, other people’s opinions about what I should and shouldn’t do don’t matter; all that matters is that I pursue what makes me happy. Right now, studying the classics is what makes me happiest, so I will continue to work on that. But if that changes in the future, I need to be flexible. I will end up where I am supposed to end up, even if it is a random high school in upstate New York. You never know. :)