I’m nearly four weeks into the semester.

My first round of exams are coming up this week. I’m consistently scoring 80’s and 90’s on every assignment, and am quickly (once again) becoming the professor’s pet in both classes. I’m the defacto leader of both my lab group and my conservation presentation group in my Biology course. I have a solid study routine (among many other very solid routines). I feel good. I look good. I’m eating well. I’m exercising. 

Yet, for some fucking stupid reason I can’t quite put into words, I’m feeling completely out of my element. I have no idea what I’m doing. I have very little confidence in my ability to function and perform as a college student. I’m honestly doubtful that I’ll be accepted into CU Denver next month (even though I’m virtually guaranteed a spot at CU Denver thanks to my GPA and the fact that I’ll commute from home). Most of all, I’m downright terrified of something I can’t even begin to pinpoint or understand, and I’ve been this way since before the semester started. 

Of course, the semester has only served as fuel for my anxiety’s raging fire, especially since I’m taking on two massive courses, neither of which I ever expected myself to sign up for, let alone succeed in. But, it’s not like I jumped into this shit head-first with absolutely zero plans or routines. 

I started my journey as a college student in the fall of 2021 taking just one class. I signed up for the semester last-minute when my grandma Debbie practically dragged me to ACC by the scruff of my neck to make me turn in my high school transcripts. During that adventure, she made me pick a class. Because I’d waited so long to sign up for college, I was left with only two classes to pick from: Mythological Literature or Astronomy 101 with Lab. I went with Astronomy and, while I didn’t love it, I enjoyed it enough to get a solid B and sign up for two classes the following semester. Nearly three years later, here I am. Still incredibly nervous and insecure as a student, but I must also admit something:

Biology is seriously starting to grow on me. Like, to the point I’m having conversations with my parents about the possibility of going to graduate school in the not-so-distant future. Holy fucking shitballs!

Ok, I’m not particularly enjoying having to learn (and somewhat relearn) basic chemistry for biology. I understand why it’s a good idea to know how atoms and molecules work, just like I understand why it’s a good idea to know calculus. But, no matter how I frame it in my mind, I still haven’t gotten myself to like chemistry or calculus. 

Oh well… I’ll learn them anyway. 

Biology, however, especially when it comes to learning about what makes life… well… life, and doing cool shit in a lab, it’s an entirely different story than chemistry or calculus. 

Truth is, I really like biology, and I don’t know what to do with that revelation. 

I mean… for pretty much my entire life, I’ve lived by the motto, “This sucks, but I’ve gotta do it anyway.”, never once thinking about forming any long-term dreams or goals. After all, I was gonna die young and sick anyway, so what was the point of deluding myself into some sort of unachievable dream or goal, if I already knew that I had no chance of achieving it at all?

Growing up, my parents would say something along the lines of “Suck it up, Buttercup!” whenever I freaked out over going to the doctors’ every other month, or whenever I got upset about having to take my pills and do my CF treatments every damn day. I got very used to hearing, “Welp, too bad! You’re doing it anyway.” over and over and over and over again from both of my parents, every single time I bitched about it. 

Well, they weren’t actually that harsh about it (most of the time, anyway), but the message was made clear regardless: I could whine and cry all that I wanted, but I was still gonna take my pills, get my shots, and do my treatments every single day no matter what the hell was going on, as my life literally depended upon it. 

As a little girl, I didn’t really understand why I had to work so much harder to my peers to simply stay alive. As an adult, I still don’t understand why I was born the way that I was, but I do understand why my parents made me eat right, exercise every day, do my treatments, take my pills, and see my doctors’ on an extremely rigid schedule. And, there’s certainly a silver lining that I cannot ignore: Because I had to work so hard to stay alive, I developed a lot of discipline and a “pain tolerance” that most of my peers lack. 

In other words, my life revolved around literally doing everything I didn’t want to do, so I was less likely to die a horrific death. Therefore, I just got used to constantly doing things I didn’t (and still don’t) want to do. 

Nowadays, because I’m so used to just doing hard things regardless of how I feel about them for the sake of survival, I never really realized that people often accomplish goals and dreams in life that bring them joy and give them a sense of purpose. Moreover, I simply haven’t considered pursuing a career that I may actually enjoy. Instead, I’ve simply been looking at college as a series of boxes to check so, years from now, I can land a secure, well-paying job that likely won’t be replaced by AI or shipped overseas, in order to ensure my independence and survival. 

For the record, it’s not bad to have that sort of goal. It’s not unreasonable or illogical or defeatist by any means. But, I must admit that it hasn’t sat too well with me either. My intuition says that there’s gotta be a healthy middle ground somewhere between having a well-paying job that sucks but keeps me alive, and a minimum-wage-paying job that is awesome but is guaranteed to be short-lived. Perhaps, for me, Biology is precisely that middle ground.

Since I came to that conclusion, I’ve been praying an awful lot about possibly pursuing a career in Biology. Pursuing a career in Biology would require me to spend many more years of my life going to school full-time, so I can then spend my career doing one of the hardest, most mind-melting yet rewarding jobs in the world: exploring and discovering science. And then finding a way to get the news out to the general public. 

Sounds awesome, right? Well… I’m not so sure. 

While being a Biologist sounds really cool, I can’t deny the fact that I have many worries, fears, and doubts about my ability to be a successful scientist of any kind, let alone in something as notoriously difficult as Biology. Also, for a myriad of reasons, some of which I struggle to  articulate, becoming a Biologist (or any kind of scientist for that matter) scares the absolute shit outta me. 

For one, college is ridiculously expensive. If I’m not careful, I’ll doom-scroll the news and scare myself away from getting my associate’s degree, let alone a goddamned graduate degree, out of fear of wracking up hundreds of thousands worth in interest loan debt! 

Logically, I know that won’t happen. If I pursue a graduate degree in the sciences (especially Biology at CU Denver, which is a well-known Biology school), many of those degrees are paid for by scholarships and grants, and the school may even give me a stipend for studying a particular degree. Emotionally, however, I can’t help but play the dreadful what-if game when it comes to that kind of money. 

However, emotionally-speaking, I have even more greater challenges to deal with than just my (mostly irrational) financial fears. The biggest one being my imposter syndrome, which seems to bite me in the ass at some point or another every semester. It has been especially loud over the past couple of weeks, for reasons I do and do not know. 

The dumbest reason I know that still contributes to my Imposter Syndrome is the fact that I don’t fit the “stereotypical” academic/studious student trope. This is reinforced by the fact that every semester, without fail, someone points out the fact that I dress and sound more like a rural hillbilly than a person who was born and raised in Denver, Colorado. 

I’m not ashamed of my wardrobe or my hobbies/interests, so I’m not gonna stop wearing and liking what I find most comfortable and enjoyable because of other people’s superficial judgements. If/when the time comes, I’ll pick up some more “professionally appropriate” attire. But, for now, I’m simply an undergraduate college student trying to find my place in the world. Why would I care about what some random people may or may not think of me?

Still, as funny as I find the “You look like you’ve got elk in your freezer…”-type experiences I've had, there’s a part of me that wonders if I’m doing something wrong by coming to a community college in Denver looking (and sounding) like my rural Minnesota cousins. I know I’ve earned my place (and my GPA) as a community college student (and professor’s pet) without even trying. I know I don’t have to change my appearance or my hobbies to be successful in college. But, I still don’t fit in; occasionally, I even catch a whiff of elitism from one of my peers or even a professor. And I sense that might get worse when I leave community college behind for someplace even more pretentious. 

Also, I’m afraid of leaving much of my beloved family behind, if that makes sense. I know that rural towns have been suffering from “brain drain” for decades, and for very good reasons. However, while I may not politically agree with my rural relatives, and may even end up much more “well educated” than them, I still love them very much, and cherish their company. 

Meanwhile, I also have very “well educated” relatives who… well… let’s just say we don’t get along too well. They’re not bad people. They’ve just got their own issues and ways of living that has nothing to do with their education, but still don’t mesh well with mine. 

In other words, I worry (perhaps too much) about what I may or may not leave behind when I inevitably take the plunge into even higher education than community college. I worry that I might unknowingly get arrogant or “lose touch” with the rest of the world, and with my cherished loved ones, if I get too far into higher education. I worry that my loved ones might view me differently (and not in good ways), too. I hope that makes sense. 

Along these same lines, I worry that I won’t be accepted into university in the first place (even though, as I said before, logically I know I’ll get in thanks to my GPA alone). But if I do get accepted and enrolled at university, I fear that I won’t be accepted. I fear that my peers and professors will look down on me much more than some of them already have at my community college, unless I work my ass off to disguise myself as someone I’m not. 

Thing is, I know that I can’t simply dress my way away from my weirdness… for lack of better words. I am who I am even if I switch out my camo hoodies and jeans for a tweed jacket and khakis. I’d just look a bit smarter, I guess. But I sure as hell wouldn’t feel very good, therefore I wouldn’t put my best foot forward, and then I’d actually drop out of university.