What is on the Other Side of This Mountain?

Hey guys!

So as you guys may know, I have been very stressed about my future lately. I am currently a U2 student, which means that I will be graduating next semester and then, well... life happens. Not that life hasn't already started, but I think you guys know what I mean, like a real job, getting your own place to live and all that stuff. Hopefully I can still bum at my parents place for, maybe forever :P but it is scary.

Right now I am looking for something a little more in my field, which for those of you who don't know it is in the science field, more on the cell biology/anatomy/pharmacology side of science and it is getting a little tricky. Some of you might know that I failed a class previously, and if I actually never mentioned that, then yes, I have failed a class before and it took one hell of a bite out of my GPA. But it's getting tricky because I failed that class and  cause of that my GPA sucks, plus I have no lab experience, so good luck to me to finding a job in my own field when I am competing with people with amazing GPAs and people that are ultra competitive because they want to get into med school.

I emailed a lab recently to ask for a position they were offering and the response was basically, you are not a competitive enough candidate due to your GPA, you would to be very successful because we are looking for someone who is competitive enough to be able to win an award. Obviously worded nicer than that, to be honest, I would have preferred to not have had a response, it would have been less of a punch in the face.

I'm worried because it is hard to get into a lab, they expect you to have experience and to have an amazing GPA, and I just don't have either. But let's face it, not everyone is a 4.0 super decorated GPA 21 year old. But it is the career path I chose, so I guess I have to suck it up and hope for the best right?

I know not many labs will take people like me because we are seen as the slackers and the ones that can't win awards, but how would they know? They look at one thing and that is what they judge you with, but not all hardworking people get the best results (although in this case it is the truth) but some people fall into the cracks and we all fail at some point in our lives, we don't always get what we get. So it is hard, and to be honest, if I was hiring someone I would judge based on the same criteria. But at the same time, I'm 21, and I'm trying to figure out my life, what do I like? what do I want? How do I know, I haven't even lived for that long yet!

It's hard though, seeing people you know get amazing grades, or get amazing job/school opportunities and here I am, wandering around, dragging my feet while so many people around me are achieving greatness. Some are more humble about it than others and some aren't happy with what they have, but I can guarantee you that if you were in my shoes looking at you, you would be happier in your position than in mine. Although I love my current job, it's not something that is going to lead me anywhere in life. If I were in business it would be an amazing thing for me now, I recently recruited people for this years wave of employees and I have experience in employee training and management, but does any of that count in my field? Not that I have seen so far. I'm not complaining though, thanks to this job i have made friends with people that I have never expected to make friends with and I have gotten the chance to get out of my shell and stand up for myself when I need to. I was one hell of an unconfident girl before this job (not that I am that much better now, but the me 4 years ago and the me now is a totally different girl). But it is still hard to look at what everyone else is accomplishing and look at what I am accomplishing. I mean one of my old TA's who is a year or two older than me, just got accepted into a PhD program at the University of Oxford in a program that only accepts 5 people annually, she's worked at 6 labs already and she has TA'd, she has also been in arts programs and she also teaches herself to play an amazing array of instruments and she finds time to have fun and kick ass. How do people have so much talent (not to mention time)?!

No, I am not jealous of her, in fact, I think she deserves it, she is amazingly humble and she is amazingly talented and I think this is something she deserves because she has that drive and that passion in her that a a lot of people in this day and age and not to mention, people in science, don't have. She is genuinely nice and humble and in my mind, she deserves this opportunity more than any other science student I know.

But once again, it gets scary to see people around me accomplish such amazing things, while I still feel like a fish floating around, going nowhere, or trying to get somewhere but end up swimming in circles coming  back to the same thing over and over again. I've thought of career paths in the future, but none of them necessarily feel right or seem right, and I'm worried that by the time I get to the top of this mountain, I won't like what I see on the other side, or worse, find out that it's a cliff with nothing but a void on the other side.

-J

Uncertain Future

Hey guys,

So recently I've been thinking about my future, and right now what it looks like is a blank wall. I have no idea what I want to do in a few years. I have no idea if the field I'm in right now is what I want to do for the rest of my life or if it is just a waste of time. I know I'm not the only person in these shoes right now. I mean, we are pretty old and in a few years we will be independent (if we aren't already). And to be honest, it scares me that I don't know in what direction my life is taking me. I want to be able to say this is what I want to be and this is what I have to do to get there. I would love to just have something planned, even if it won't happen, just to know I have something to look forward to or to try to accomplish. Right now I feel like I'm just in limbo. I keep asking myself if I'm wasting time, or if I'm screwed for my future, or if I should be doing more of this or more of that.I really don't know what I want to be doing and lately just the uncertainty has been unmotivating me. I keep thinking "Why waste time on this if this isn't what I want to be doing for the rest of my life?"

I'm lucky that my parents aren't forcing me to become something, they let me become what I want to become, unless I want to be a hobo or a couch potato, they might have issues with that. But they don't expect me to be a doctor or a lawyer or anything else. My life is my decision. And am blessed to have parents who support me, despite the fact that they don't fully understand where my program will lead me to in the future. They just want me and my brothers to have a good education and to at least have a degree in something, whether it be a trade, college or undergraduate degree.

I have to admit that sometimes I envy the people that know what they want to become and go for it and some are very successful, which brings me why I said that I envy them sometimes. There are the people who know what they want to become and go for it, and most are happy, some are unhappy but do it anyways because they want to or because they feel pressured to. But there are some that are set in becoming something then get lost on the way there and when they are lost they are helpless, they feel like they have nothing left and that all that is left in their lives is nothing, that they won't be able to accomplish anything because that one opportunity is cut off. But it is simply untrue, we are always exposed to opportunities and it is up to us to seize them and to be able to make something out of them. In the last year I've noticed that a lot of people don't seize the opportunities given to them because they feel like it won't lead them anywhere. But how would they know without attempting? We never know what we like and don't like until we have tried it, only then can we truly know if something is for us or if it isn't.

Some people, myself included, have opportunities that come to them, but realize that they are at the wrong time in their lives or that they are unrelated to what we truly want to do in our lives. This helps because it gives you a sense of whether or not you are in the right directions. But in my case it has confused em even more than not having the opportunity. You get to see the good and the bad in the different opportunities that are given to you, if you chose to take them. And sometimes, you can't tell the difference between the good and the bad. And sometimes, the good and bad aren't simply black and white, but a big grey mess.

I've never know what I wanted to be, my answers have been changing so much over the years, like a lot of other people. It has gone from teaching, to writing, to acting, to pharmacist, to photographer, to researcher, to ophthalmologist... but I am never sure, I always have doubts. And it makes it hard with school too, when your  grades aren't good enough or when you love somethings but have a lot of other things in your classes. When do the positives outweigh the negatives?

I'm 20, soon to be 21 and I am scared that I don't know what I want to be doing 10 years from now. I wish that I would at least have an idea, even just a little one. But I feel like I don't have that many opportunities due to my grades and my experience. All I know is that I want to be able to help people and interact with people. I want to be able to put a smile on people's faces and know that I'm doing something positive in their lives. But to be able to do that, I feel like I would have to make myself happy first. I feel like I need to find myself, I need to be able to comfortable in my own skin and I have to be able to know what I'm good at and what I'm bad at and to be honest (and this is sad to say), I have no clue what I'm good and bad at.

I want to take a year off and travel to try to find myself and to find something that will truly inspire me, but I don't have the money for that, and what if I do take a year off and nothing happens and I figure nothing out and I just end up back in the cycle that I was in before and I would still be unhappy and uncertain, but I would also be unhappy at myself for wasting a year.

I think one of my main problems is that I have too many doubts. I keep doubting my own abilities and I have a feeling that at the end of the day that might be what is cutting off my opportunities. I will try to change that, but it is just so hard when you're trying to figure your future out but you just keep coming up with a blank wall :(

I seriously need some time to myself to just figure out my whole entire life, maybe not my whole entire life, but like the not so distant future. Right now I'm considering so many things, like graduate programs, or doing a technical degree, or trying to find a job with the undergraduate degree that I am currently trying to finish. My dream job would be to own a cafe and just make pastries and serve people coffee and put a smile on customers faces for a while, but there are so many holes in that idea. My second dream job would to be a novelist, I love coming up with ideas and imagining them coming to life, I also love getting lost in my own little world. Believe it or not, this little scientist has a creative side :P Or I would love to own an online business or just get paid to travel and explore places. But until I find that something I want to be, I'll be continuing my uncertain undergrad and hoping that something positive will come out of it.

Hoping your futures look brighter than mine,
-J