I've been passively engaging in the job search process for the last few months now and I've recently made a development that I'm doing something terribly wrong. My resume squishes as many academic achievements into a sheet of paper as possible and I'd like to think my qualifications are on par, but the one gaping hole is any sort of passion or desire for the opportunities I've come across. Those who have known me lately will probably think that my work ethic toward academics was never really existent and to an extent that is true but not because I'm inherently a lazy person. To the contrary, I think I am not only able but also willing to put forth maximal effort. When it's something worth working fore. Therein lies my biggest problem which is that I don't have a fundamental interest in biochemistry. I declared the major with the intent of pursuing medical school and while I've gained a passable scientific knowledge base, my lack of fascination in the field makes any technical skill irrelevant.
I know myself well enough to know (as if these four years as a biochemistry major weren't evidence enough) that if I end up in a position where I don't think the effort required to be the best is effort worth expending, I won't give a shit. I'll do an adequate job but nothing more. Just like college.
I've been watching Charlie spend hours on end, every day, working to prepare his undergraduate honors thesis which he'll be presenting tomorrow afternoon. It's the compilation of all of the research he's done in a molecular marine bio lab for the past year or 2, including full time last summer. In a way I'm jealous because I don't care nearly as much about my research. It was an interesting exercise in organic synthetic lab techniques and experimental procedures, but nothing more. I only want to publish a paper on the principle of wanting to be productive and wanting to produce some evidence of my time trapped in an underfunded lab where no one has accountability. I don't actually care about nitrohydroxylation and the bullshit potential 'applications' that are supposed to make it somehow relevant.
So this leads me to think that I should just scrap what I've been doing simply because it seems like the logical next step. It's not. It can't be, because it would be a waste for me to not wake up every day excited to be productive. It would be a shame for me to settle for a field where I dread any excess effort, where I try to cleverly only do a passable job simply because I don't care enough to do more.
Now, then, is the issue of identifying the things I actually care about and using the education and background that I already have in a productive way to get me to the next step. Or not. I honestly wouldn't care if my hard science degree becomes totally irrelevant in my near future, given that I find something I actually care about. I just seem to think a degree sounds better than no degree but then again, I always said a bachelor's is really just to prove that you're willing to play the game long enough for them to give you that sheet of paper. Apparently that's worth more than actual skill in our society.
ANYWAY. Things I actually care about and love to spend time doing/learning about:
-Right to die, and other Kevorkian-inspired medical ethics issues
-Food tastyness, not that I have any skill in its actual preparation, only eating and critiquing. Haha. Useful.
-Gay rights.
-Puppies.
-Organizing things. Logistics. Anyone who's seen my spreadsheets know how anal I am about this, but I'm good at it.
-Sports med. Guess I kindof missed the boat on that one. Rather, I still love the idea of ortho and all but I'm just not sure I'm ready to deal with the whole med school thing.
-World travel. So many good things.
I figure even if some of these seem stupid, recent events have shown me that there are markets and opportunities for things I would never consider as traditional job options. Kids that go to school 2 days a week and go snowboarding or surfing or do other crazy extreme sports for the other 5 days per week I would previously doom to failure. But no. They end up landing jobs with companies like GoPro, making
snowboarding videos that THEY WOULD BE DOING ANYWAY. That's what they love spending their time on, and now they're going to be paid for doing exactly what they would do if real-life obligations didn't have to be a consideration. What could be better?
Yes, I'm jealous. I'm really jealous. I'm jealous that 1-- they had the balls to just say fuck school, do ok and get an easy fuck business degree, and instead spend time and effort on what they actually care about. Caring that much makes it so easy to be good at. 2-- they weren't sucked into thinking that education and prestige should be the sole focus. I just need to get over this strange ego thing and thinking that academic rigor actually matters. It doesn't. I'm over it. When comm kids in my sports business class are getting internships with Nike and jobs at the Pac-12 Network-- an industry where a shitty, sorry-ass team was just bought from a crook for $2.15 billion dollars because of a $4 BILLION MEDIA RIGHTS DEAL, I have no place to hate. They're doing something right. I'm the one staring in the face of multiple $15/hour lab bitch temp jobs that no one wants.
What I really miss is that feeling when I read a description of something and it sounds so perfect and so appealing that I'm giddy. I envision how it fits into my plan of my future and how relevant it is and where I'll go next. I had this feeling when I found this orthopedic surgery internship. I had it when I read about USC's RHP program. It seemed inevitable. I HAD to get these opportunities, and when you care that much and want it and anticipate it so clearly, things tend to work out. I'm desperate for something that gives me that feeling again. Otherwise I'm just going to become some soul-less lab bitch who just tries to make a shit ton of money doing something I don't give a damn about (patent law, anyone?)
Hm. So this ended up being much more of a messy rant than I had intended, but the point is that something has to change. I need to be inspired into action, and it's up to me to find something that I actively want to work for. Sorting out my thoughts is good. Maybe I'll post a follow-up later. I need to do something about this, it's getting ridiculous.
Even so, if Boeing makes me an offer I'll accept it on the spot.
Appendix: Want to vom?
http://www.bama.ua.edu/~chem/undergraduate/undergradprograms/chem-careers.html
http://portal.acs.org/portal/acs/corg/content?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=PP_SUPERARTICLE&node_id=1188&use_sec=false&sec_url_var=region1&__uuid=37697451-6b88-487a-a825-8034e2d1bc9b
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