My Mini Quarter Life Crisis

This past week, I have been experiencing an internal crisis of not knowing whether I should pursue research in the life sciences as a career path. This dilemma started from having a hard time choosing between staying in my UROP or finding a new one. Thinking about this quandary for some period of time ended up opening a can of worms. When I sat in my cubicle trying to read some research papers last Tuesday, thoughts of why I didn’t enjoy my UROP as much as I wished kept distracting me. These thoughts mushroomed in size and scope to the point that I started questioning whether I actually want to continue studying biochemistry in graduate school. 

For my current UROP, I like the lab environment and my advisor, but I don’t feel super passionate about the research topic. My UROP project involves studying a protein called GlfT2, an enzyme responsible for carbohydrate polymerization of the cell wall in bacteria. The broader application of the research is to understand the mechanisms of the enzyme so novel antibiotic targets can be made to fight tuberculosis. 

I was kind of sad when I thought of how excited I was to find this project in February, even though glycobiology wasn’t my primary interest. The project reminded me of what made me interested in biochemistry in the first place – understanding life on the molecular scale to develop medical solutions such as antibiotics. After reading many papers about GlfT2 and glycobiology, however, I have yet to experience this burning desire to learn more about GlfT2. I am glad that I am becoming an expert when it comes to understanding this specific enzyme, but I don’t find glycobiology fascinating. 

Part of me thinks that I will be more enthusiastic if I switch labs, yet the other part of me wants to stay for an extra semester or two. It is not uncommon for MIT students to only stay in a UROP for less than 6 months, but I would like to gain more expertise and knowledge before moving on. By doing so, the transition to the next UROP is smoother. I hope that staying in the project will allow me to develop my experiments and eventually contribute to some paper. In all honesty, these thoughts are too optimistic. 

I don’t know if this fear is irrational, but I am afraid that if I switch labs, there is the possibility that I don’t enjoy my UROP at this new lab. Instead of telling myself to stop catastrophizing the future, my train of thought follows the slippery slope fallacy: if I don’t like my second UROP, then it is a confirmation that I don’t like research and I chose the wrong academic track. I envisioned my future self two years down the road, sticking to Course 5-7 (Chemistry & Biology) because it is too late to switch to other majors. I don’t make significant contributions to my UROP project and as a result, I don’t go to a good graduate school. In other words, I am average in the chemical biology field. 

All of this worrying is not only unhelpful, but also self-deprecating. I hate how I think that my lukewarm attitude towards my summer UROP is a reflection that something is wrong with me as an aspiring scientist. I know that everyone has personal preferences when it comes to what lab they like working in, from lab size to research topics. Despite having this awareness, I somehow make an exception for myself. 

A cloud of misery looms over my head and I go on thinking about how I haven’t read enough science journals outside of my project and how I haven’t spent more time going to chemistry guest lectures. The list goes on and on. In short, my brain thinks that if I lived and breathed science, then I would grow to love my UROP. I am not sure if my current lack of interest has to do with only liking a subset of proteins, or that I actually don’t like studying proteins and I would enjoy organic chemistry research more. I came to MIT wanting to study enzymes because based on my high school experience, I found deep satisfaction in understanding how the enzyme’s specific structure contributed to its overall function. This curiosity continued when I took 5.07 (Intro to Biological Chemistry) last fall and I liked learning the organic mechanisms on active sites of important enzymes with metabolic roles. 

Now, I am unsure whether I like studying proteins since I am not that enthusiastic about the techniques that happen behind the scenes – making DNA plasmids, preparing cell cultures, purifying proteins, crystallizing them, then spending hours on a computer analyzing crystallography data. The process feels tedious and there are quite a few failures throughout the journey, which require going back and starting all over. Thinking of my high school self now embarrasses me: I imagined the thrill of discovering something new, overlooking the frustration and disappointment of failed experiments. The more I think about this problem, the question of “can I enjoy learning a topic but not want to pursue higher-end goals like research?” began to form in my mind. I wondered if it made any sense that I enjoyed learning biochemistry and organic chemistry while having reservations about pursuing graduate school and research. 

Maybe I do have a genuine interest to learn about protein structure, but I have trouble accepting the fact that in reality, research is a harsh and brutal environment. If you want to have a better idea of what I mean by this, you should watch Naturally Obsessed, a documentary about a group of Ph.D. students who spend more than three years crystallizing a protein.

As much as I like to say that my strengths include perseverance and hard work, I want to follow the path of least resistance. I don’t want to receive a low stipend as a Ph.D. student for a job that goes beyond 40 hours a week for six years. Do I really have the mental strength to go through many years of trial and error before my project produces promising results? I have to admit that the idea of securing a job at some banking firm or tech company right after graduation with a nice starting salary sounds appealing. But I can’t imagine an alternate life. 

Computer science has always been a struggle for me and I don’t see myself taking Course 6 classes. Analyzing data and advising companies as an investment banker doesn’t interest me. Medical school is out of the picture because I don’t want to work 80 hours a week during residency. I have briefly considered other careers like STEM education and policy, but in the end, I kept going back to research. Perhaps I will continue pursuing chemistry and biology research because it is the field that I am most confident in and familiar with, even though it may turn out not to be my favorite thing to do. I know that I am making the future sound much worse than it is, given that one’s major doesn’t dictate the rest of one’s life.

I am sure that I am not the only one feeling frustrated about not knowing what I truly enjoy learning and doing. My peers around are also experiencing these difficult decisions. Likewise, I don’t have to keep all these complicated thoughts to myself. A lot of my older friends have switched UROPs, so I can ask them how did they make the smooth transition between the two. I hate how I tend to let things drag on, but I plan to make an appointment with the UROP office so I can get advice on what future steps I can consider.