I wasn’t accepted into grad school when I first applied during my final year of college. The emails beginning with “We’re sorry to inform you” trickled one by one into my inbox, and I spent time frantically trying to figure out my post-graduation plans, since they were previously just ‘grad school.’ Fortunately, most of these emails had good suggestions about actions to take over the next couple of years, but one piece of feedback stung a little more than the rest. One program noted that while I had spent time doing research, my science grades were ‘quite poor.’
Honestly, they weren’t wrong.
Before college, I based a large portion of my self-worth and satisfaction on my ‘straight-A’ high school performance. However, a combination of unaddressed physical and mental health challenges really destroyed my GPA when I started taking higher-level science courses. I did well in calculus and general chemistry as a freshman, but was blindsided when I became completely overwhelmed by organic chemistry, molecular biology, and introductory neuroscience courses during my second year. As the semester drew to a close, I had to come to the cold realization that I was no longer a shiny straight-A student, a fundamental part of who I was. After that semester, I decided that science obviously wasn’t for me and started to explore other majors like linguistics and music production.
Looking back, I’m really grateful for the experiences I had. While on my existential journey that led me through a year and a half of Spanish, acoustics, linguistics, and other assorted courses, I stayed involved in a research lab that studied the neurobiology of addiction. The process of exploring questions that relate to how we think and behave, coupled with learning exciting techniques like patch-clamp electrophysiology (click here for a summary), was fascinating and motivating.
I made the decision to finish the requirements for my Neuroscience major, which was not an easy path for me. I think I got an A in only 1 out of my 6 neuroscience classes, and I took several chemistry courses in which I was elated to escape with a C or C- so that I didn’t have to retake them. Although I struggled a lot in the undergraduate grind, every so often I learned the foundational concepts that allowed me to start to actually understand what was transpiring in the lab. Being involved in research kept me going and helped me directly apply what I was learning in various classes, giving them more meaning to me than just a checked box on a transcript. I eventually graduated, and after working for 2 years as a technician in a neuroscience research lab, I was accepted into grad school and couldn’t be happier with how my journey has unfolded.
Unlearning the attitude of my grades-based self-worth was difficult and took years, but I can see now the degree to which that process improved my life. While participating in research, I learned that real science involves a lot of failure. Repeat: a LOT of ‘failure.’ Learning to handle experiences in class where I felt like I was constantly failing helped give me resilience for when experiments didn’t work out like I thought they would in the lab (hint: it is often. So often). If school would have come as easily for me as it did in high school, I never would have really explored language, literature, and music courses. While these weren’t science courses, I actually learned a lot of concepts in these courses that have influenced the way I do research and approach science.
Because I got rid of my perfectionistic approach to grades, I learned to base my self-worth and satisfaction in other areas of my life, such as my hobbies, research interests, and relationships. I have often been able to interweave these things with science. For example, every once in a while, I write a neuroscience song and make a fun video of it with a long-time artist friend. Because taking Spanish language and culture classes helped me value the power of communication and reaching across boundaries, I write for ScIU as a way to do just that. I took an electronics class that wasn’t required and have found myself using my soldering/circuit skills, and I built these devices to help me efficiently ask and answer questions about the neurobiology of addiction.
I currently do research in a lab where I explore fascinating concepts that have the potential to find better treatments for chronic pain and opioid addiction. While getting bad grades in science classes was a necessary part of my journey, I don’t necessarily recommend that all undergrads start purposely failing all their tests. Rather, I hope that they can learn and apply some principles from my experience. For example, tying in your own outside interests with your chosen major can make it more meaningful and rewarding. Getting an undesirable grade isn’t the worst thing that can happen. Most of all, learning to fail gracefully is going to help you, whether you wind up doing science or not.
Edited by Chloe Holden and Evan Arnet
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