Note: Something, something, I'm going through another existential crisis. 

Eight years ago, in an attempt to make undergraduate STEM students feel like they’re contributing new information to science rather than simply running the same old, tired experiments over and over again, the American Society of Mammalogists came together to create Squirrel-Net: a huge database to store data on wildlife behavior collected by undergraduate students, such as myself. 

All of last month, my Biology Lab instructor tasked us with observing and documenting Fox Squirrels on campus, so we could contribute to Squirrel-Net and officially become “published scientists”. Long story short, I’m apparently an official, published scientist. 

To be honest, I really don’t know what to make of it. 

I mean… Squirrel-Net was easy, and it was designed to be that way. But, my TA explained that most of science- including “new” science- is often just as easy as observing something and checking off a box on a chart, much like what I did while watching the squirrels on campus. Hell… half the time, we didn’t even have to bring an observation chart with us to observe squirrels. We did several things called Photo Voices throughout the unit, which required me to take pictures of anything and everything I found interesting, and write about what it was and why I thought it was worthy of a picture. 

Turns out, the pictures I took during my lab courses have also been put into a database for actual professionals to review and perhaps even do something meaningful with. And, I took a lot of pictures during labs over the past month or so, most of which did end up being turned in. 

Because I took my expensive camera with me to these labs and turned in some of the pictures of squirrels and infrastructure I took, the TA pulled me aside and told me outright, “You’re an excellent scientist, already!”

Again, I didn’t know what to say or do, so I just awkwardly grinned and said, “Thank you.”, as I shuffled away like a guilty dog. 

I mean… even though I’m technically a “published scientist” now, I couldn’t feel like a scientist any less than I do. Why that is? Well… I don’t know for certain, but I have my theories, which are pretty damn solid according to my therapist. 

I’ve written this before, but on a superficial level, I look nothing like a scientist. I don’t own or wear a lab coat. I don’t wear fancy clothes. I don’t attend formal, academic events. Hell, I don’t even talk about science when I’m not bitching about how much busywork I have to do between now and finals week. Frankly, I feel like I’m doing the bare minimum, academically-speaking. Yet, I’m getting straight A’s in all of my classes, and my peers and professors alike are convinced I’m obsessed with studying. 

Except… I’m not. 

In fact, I really hate words like “study” and “homework”, because they just… leave a bad taste in my mouth whenever I say them aloud. Of course, when I’m working on stuff for class, I’m technically studying and doing homework. But, I don’t particularly enjoy it. I just do it to get it done, so I can do other, much more fun things. Such as… well… take pictures of wildlife and foliage for artistic reasons. 

Except, through my photography, I’ve learned a ton about the nature around me since I catalogue everything. And before getting obsessed with nature photography, I still obsessively learned about the nature around me by watching nature documentaries, watching videos on YouTube about nature, reading books about nature, and of course, hunting, fishing, hiking, off-roading, etc. 

Turns out, all of that has to do with science. In fact, almost everything I thoroughly enjoy doing is explicitly scientific. Right down to data-entr- er I mean- comparing my photos of unknown plants and animals to images on Google till I find a match, and then titling the picture that thing I matched it with on Google. 

In other words, I’ve been actively enjoying and even contributing to science all of my life. Yet, I grew up “hating science”. Why?

Well… it turns out that I never hated science. I hated school. School ruined science for me, plain and simple. 

Until I ended up in Homebound, every science teacher I had taught science terribly. Hell… school as a whole made education seem as appealing to me as dog puke or pink, frilly dresses. School was simply unbearable to me, for so many reasons. And the worst of my school experiences happened at a “college-prep” school called DSST: Denver School of Science and Technology.

In fact, DSST was the school that introduced the idea of college to me in the first place, and rubbed it in my face, constantly. Everything that school did was apparently “college focused”. Teachers bragged constantly about the universities they attended. The school was obsessed with being “distinguished” (which is another word that’s still grating to my ears today), and building up “distinguished” students. Because of that, they had a direct school-to-university pipeline, including guaranteeing a spot at CU Denver’s Medical School to those who graduated high school from DSST. 

Speaking of which, DSST’s way of building up “distinguished” students was akin to a fucking military school. Our uniforms had to be perfectly clean, fit, and colored. I once wore a pair of Ugg boots that were a shade too close to red instead of solid brown, which resulted in me being sent to a version of detention they called “refocus”, which was basically an after-school class wherein one of the teachers would essentially berate us for not being perfect. 

“Refocus or fail!” was a commonly-used motto in that “class”, if you could even call it that. 

However, most of the time, I ended up with the second kind of detention known as “college-prep”, because I almost never completed the copious amounts of homework we were assigned daily, even when I wanted to. After all, I was very sick back then. My parents and I did everything in our power to keep me healthy, but Cystic Fibrosis is a merciless condition that, at least back then, progressed exponentially. 

Despite numerous school meetings where my parents would argue with teachers and principals alike, having a highly detailed 504 plan, and many other accommodations that were on paper (but hardly ever enforced), I simply could not keep up in my classes. Legally, I couldn’t fail. But damn near every assignment I turned in, including writing and reading assignments, came back with D’s and F’s. To add insult to injury, my teachers weren’t exactly kind to me about my failing grades… to put it very lightly. 

All that hardly scratches the surface of the absolute hell I endured at that school. 

So, is it any wonder why I grew up believing that I was stupid, incapable, and frankly, beyond help? Why I believed I could never succeed in college, or even high school, assuming I even survived to attend? Or why I never showed any interest in attending college? 

Is it a complete mystery as to why, for my whole life, I told myself and others that I would never amount to anything aside from another nameless statistic, taken too soon by a condition I was born with and could not help? 

Even now, over a decade later, I can still feel the immense pain I felt while attending DSST. A burning ball of rage and despair forms in my throat whenever I’m reminded of it. That, and my whole body tightens as my heart races. I wish I had the words to truly describe to my parents what was happening to me back then, and the power to do something about it aside from leave for “greener” pastures.

These same feelings, stifled only by a shitload of anxiety, still bubble to the surface from time-to-time, especially when I’m at college. I cope by distracting myself from those feelings, because I really don’t want to burst into tears in front of anyone. But, I have to admit, I’ve shed plenty of tears in the Xterra both to and from my classes at CU Denver. Not because of academics, but because of these intense feelings I’ve grown up to associate with academics. 

In other words, my university classes have been pretty easy, so far. Is the workload a bit heavy and redundant at times? Sure. But, have I felt the need to pull an all-nighter to write a paper or study for an exam, so far? No. Nor do I plan to do that, because my physical and mental health are far more important to me than academics. 

In fact, the main reason why I’m able to succeed in college at all, is because I take very good care of my mental and physical health. Throughout K-12, and especially at DSST, my physical and mental health were terrible. Even dire at times, as I was giving it my all to simply survive, I had almost no energy- let alone desire- to spend on schoolwork. Sending me to detention (AKA “college prep”) five days per week did nothing to change my mind. It actually proved to me that I was stupid, incapable, and destined to fail no matter how hard I tried. Oh, and my chronic exhaustion and anxiety made my physical health that much worse, too, eventually culminating into a severe MRSA infection that landed me in the hospital for two-and-a-half weeks. 

Unsurprisingly, when I left DSST for Girls Athletic Leadership School, I was able to recover physically and mentally, at least a little bit. I still despised school and dreaded going there every day. But, at least at GALS, I was hardly ever bullied, and my mental and physical health were slightly prioritized over my academics. Interestingly, as my physical and mental health improved, so did my grades, even though I did absolutely nothing else differently at GALS than I did at DSST. 

Actually, that’s not entirely true. I did far less school work at GALS than I did at DSST. 

In fact, years later, when I was in Homebound with Eric as my teacher, my grades absolutely skyrocketed even though I did less than three hours of school and/or school work per day! Perhaps, that happened because Homebound sheltered me from most of the unnecessary stresses of school, while allowing me to fully prioritize my physical health above everything else. 

During my Homebound days, every adult in my life, including Eric, told me not to worry very much (if at all) about my grades or schoolwork. Recovering from Pseudomonas was way more important than some stupid high school grades, and it would take a lot of time, patience, and self-care to recover. 

Long story short, I spent a lot more time walking around and fishing at Clement park than I ever did on my schoolwork, and yet I was consistently getting A’s and B’s on my assignments. Including in subjects such as Algebra and Physics, which were things I never even considered I could succeed at, ever. Let alone get A’s and B’s in while doing the bare fucking minimum, academically speaking. 

When I graduated high school, on time, in the spring of 2019, I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. But, college was far from my list of to-do’s. In fact, I felt physically nauseous whenever anyone asked me if I was gonna attend college. To answer their question I’d simply reply, “I’m taking a year off of school to get my ducks in a row.”, and leave it at that. 

But then, Trikafta happened. Almost immediately after I took my first dose of Trikafta (which was awesome, but very scary), the Covid pandemic happened (which was not awesome, and also scary). But, there was a silver lining to that pandemic: I got so bored and desperate to go outside again, that I vowed to sign up for college as soon as I got vaccinated against covid. 

Now, the past wasn’t behind me (far from it). I started attending community college believing that I’d immediately flunk out. But, I made a deal with my parents: I’d start college taking one class, and if I failed it, I could try something else outside of college. Except, I didn’t fail my Astronomy 101 class. I actually got a very high B in a class several students who’d mastered calculus claimed was the hardest class they’d ever taken, and my professor assured me that I was more than capable of succeeding in college.

Oh, if only I could believe them right then and there!

Healing from trauma is not as easy as meeting one or two teachers/professors that “break the cycle”. Sure, succeeding in my classes and getting positive attention from my professors gave me the confidence and assurance I needed to keep chugging through college. But, my self-confidence continued to lack, despite the fact that I was empirically doing extremely well. 

My imposter syndrome only worsened as I ended up on the Dean’s List, then the President’s List, multiple semesters in a row. I began to get invitations to formal events for “distinguished” students like myself. I even won an award that several college officials called and begged me to walk the stage for. But, I never did. I simply hung up on them and told the Dean of the college to send me my award in the mail. 

“Are you certain you can’t attend the rewards ceremony?” his final email to me asked, “We’ll still read off your name, but it would be really unfortunate for you to not to attend.”

“Yes, I am certain I cannot attend the ceremony.” I wrote back, knowing damn-well I could’ve attended the ceremony if I wanted to. But, instead, I decided that I simply couldn’t go, because… well… since when was I worthy of such recognition?

Thinking back on those days, I can’t say I regret turning down those opportunities to attend those formal events. But, I still feel sad about the fact that I couldn’t- and honestly still can’t- see myself for who I was- and who I am.

Indeed, I’m now a full-time university student. I’ve got nearly perfect scores in my Biology classes, and I’m very comfortably passing my non-major classes as well. And yet… against all logic and reasoning, I do not see myself as a good student, worthy of the encouragement and attention I’ve gotten from my professors, TA’s, and even peers. I don’t understand what it is that makes me so… exceptional. I don’t understand why I struggled so much throughout most of K-12, only to end up in college/university and thrive there. 

In my mind, I’m no academic. I’m not supposed to be in college, let alone succeeding in it. I wasn't meant to be a scientist. I shouldn’t be commuting to downtown Denver four days per week; I was never a city girl.

Yet, truth is, I am an academic. I am in college and succeeding at it. I am now a published scientist. I do, in fact, commute two-and-from downtown Denver four days per week. And I know the city like the back of my hand. 

The reason why so many of my peers and professors are drawn to me, is because they see things about me that I cannot see. At least, things I cannot see, yet. 

But every day, despite my doubts and my fears, I wake up in the mornings and give it my best. That’s the one thing I know I’ve always been good at: doing my best. 

Sure, my best is not always the best. But, not everyone can be the best at everything they do. I may never be the best student to ever step foot on CU Denver’s campus, but I always come to campus knowing that I’ll do my best. So long as I do my best, I can go to bed and sleep like a rock knowing that I did my best; I did everything I could with the resources I had, and I could give the rest to God. Therein lies a great deal of peace, and that’s also how one makes a great deal of progress in a short amount of time. 

Indeed, comparison is the thief of joy when one compares themselves to others. But, if I just compare myself to myself, I actually feel pretty encouraged. Astounded even. I mean… when I take an honest, unbiased look at where I am today, I really can’t believe it; I just can’t believe that I’m a successful university student, going for a degree in BioTech. 

I also can’t believe- but also can’t deny- the fact that I thoroughly enjoy my Biology classes. Like… to the point I will seek out and listen to podcasts sort of related to what I’m learning in my classes, so I can listen to them while I do other things not school-related. I’ve also been coming up with ideas on how to use my education for other things besides doing whatever BioTech majors tend to do. 

One such idea is using my skills as a writer to communicate science in such a way that doesn’t bore people to death or talk down to them. After all, there is a desperate need for that kind of science communication, especially today. And, I can’t think of anything besides Mythbusters that has done such a thing in recent years. 

Speaking of Mythbusters, that show, along with Storm Chasers, was what kept me interested in science even when my science (and math) teachers were telling me I was far too stupid to be a scientist. I remember how excited I got whenever I knew I could go home from school to see a new episode of Mythbusters or Storm Chasers. I mean… there was a time in my life where I was obsessed with those shows. I had (and probably still have) a huge collection of DVDs I’d watch over and over again, especially when my mom could no longer afford cable TV. When I went to my dad’s house over the weekends, we’d binge watch Mythbusters from his DVR so I never missed a single episode. 

My dad in particular tried his best to keep my love for science alive despite what was going on at school. I recently uncovered some books he’d bought me when I was in middle school, such as a graphic novel called The Stuff of Life by Mark Schultz. Also, my dad and I watched a lot of documentaries about science and the famous scientists who propelled it forward. 

Plus, he tried to get me into science fiction, but that never stuck. I was far more interested in actual science than whatever the fuck was going on in Star Trek or Star Wars. Well… there’s a couple “sci-fi” movies I liked and still like today: Space Balls and the Austin Powers franchise. But, that’s besides the point. 

What I’m trying to get at is this: I hope to get as excited to learn about science from my professors as I did from Mythbusters and Storm Chasers when I was growing up. I hope that as I heal from my past, my love for science will reignite, and I will become obsessed with it again.