Thoughts on my biology degree, at 11:40 PM.

You've probably gathered by now that I like science. I like it a lot. But when I inform inquiring minds that I am a biology major, I'm inevitably answered with, "Oh! So you're looking at med school, then?"

No, I'm not, actually.

Cue the soft, condolatory murmurs, understanding flash of the eyes, and brief train of apologetic phrases. "Hey, that's too bad."

I can't, for the life of me, understand why I'm so often met with the same response that I would offer to a friend whose last bit of change was just eaten by the vending machine.  

I want to dive into a research lab, ask questions and maybe find some answers.  It's not a graceful acquiescence to a machine that ate all my pre-med coins only to taunt me with a degree still clinging to its inner workings. No. I pressed that button, and I saved all the coins for it too.   

And if I so much as think of mentioning that whole, "science writing" thing, I'm met with an even more noticeable lowering of the gaze. What's there to do with that?

I have respect for the crowd of future doctors out there, tremendous respect. Taking all the P. Chem classes, and for what? To help people. In fact, that's one of the reasons your occupation garners such admiration.  There is tangible proof of the merit of your hard work in every remission, prescription, and diagnosis that passes through your office.  We value life and quality of life, and your direct connection to its improvement on an individual level elevates you to prestige.   

Researchers and scientific journalists don't have quite so concrete a foundation on which to build their satisfaction.  A nicely written article may be poignant, but what way is there to gauge its effect, its long-term value? What happens to the researcher who works beneath a cloud of near-anonymity for his whole career, quietly sorting out small truths through meticulous trials that may or may not yield the results for which he had hoped? We know of the Watson and Crick's, the Mendel's, Darwin's and Morgan's. Still, there are many scientists doing really important things that we'll never hear about. The truth is, it takes many of us working together and apart to strike at something that will improve the quality of life for everyone. 

The importance of any single research effort can be lost, but only in the sense that you're looking at a microscopic portion of something entirely too big for confinement.  These people have devoted themselves to the beauty of that idea in full view. If Bob becomes well because a doctor prescribed him a medicine, he looks at the top line of script and knows to thank John Doe, M.D. Beneath his name, however, is an implied list of thousands more who helped both Bob and John get to where they are -the men and women who collectivized symptoms, identified the ailment, developed the drug, created methods for testing it, wrote about it, argued against it, and refined the process for the next time. That applies to every branch of science outside the realm of medicine as well.  Botanists and soil scientists are working on improving fertilizers and plant health.  Evolutionary biologists are trying to tease out the formation of species and the fascinating paths evolution leads them to take. Science writers are bringing critical questions to the forefront of a society that doesn't always see their worth at first glance (hence the topic at hand). But they aren't doing it individually. Why?  

Because they shouldn't be. Science is a field of collaboration.  It's the only way it will work.  So, I'm sorry if the field is so broad that individual occupations slated under the headline, "Research, Lab Work" don't incite feelings of excitement and esteem in your mind.  I'm even more sorry if you see a biology degree as a means to an exclusive, medical end and a deviation from that end as a failure or a sort of lost opportunity.

I, for one, can't wait to be a part of it.