Microbiology is hard. It’s fascinating, but so ridiculously complicated. However, I didn’t expect it to be any less difficult, considering that Dr. Francis Collins literally calls DNA and RNA the “language of God.” 

Unfortunately, due to the difficulty of biology, my imposter syndrome’s been biting my ass, hard! Last week, when I turned in my microbiology exam, I walked out already certain that I’d failed. After all, most of it was fill-in-the-blank. Biology’s hard enough when it’s mostly multiple choice. Fill-in-the-blank just felt impossible! 

As a result, I spent much of last week moping on my apparent failure, questioning my ability to do well as a biologist, or as a scientist, period! I literally thought about dropping out of university to become a Youtuber or some shit, because in my mind, I was far more likely to be successful on Youtube than I was as a university student. After all, I know I can write, but I still don’t know if I can be a scientist, let alone a good scientist. 

Ok, when I say “I know I can write but I don’t know if I can be a scientist…” I mean that, on an emotional level, I know that I can write. On a logical level, I know I can write, too. But the emotional level-  when I know in my heart that I can do something- is much more impactful than when I know something logically. And emotionally-speaking, I don’t know if I can be a good scientist or not. 

Being a natural pessimist, when I don’t know something, my instinct is to imagine the worst-case scenario, and act as though that worst-case scenario is true. It’s terrible for my anxiety, but at least I feel that I can predict the future, which alleviates the uncertainty.