(continued from part I)

I spent a couple of days wearing holes in my bedroom carpet while I tried to decide what to do. I modeled every possible graduate school to career plan I could think of, trying to find a path that excited me. Science or writing? Science or writing? But for all the quality time spent pacing, I kept returning to the same conclusion. I didn’t want to go straight into a PhD program in a single science–that didn’t get me anywhere near my dream job. But neither did I want to give up on doing science completely, there is still too much to learn. I’ve always been a scientist in my heart; I think and make decisions like a scientist, I enjoy exploration and discovery like a scientist. But I am also a writer and a communicator, and I love reaching out and sharing with the world what the scientist in me has discovered. I would rather be writing a great piece for a science journal for kids than sitting in a room staring at a computer screen while data rolls in.

Fortunately, there is a middle ground for almost any decision. In this case, the degree that lies between no science at all and a PhD in science is a master’s degree. But I was still unsure if I wanted to postpone going into a science writing program degree, since that was the most direct path to my dream career. So I did what I always do when I don’t want to make a decision: I made a list, this time of pros and cons of going to a science program first, or jumping straight into writing.

And once again the list made it clear. Most of the science writing programs I had found tended to value applicants with significant research experience, because these students tend to be better able to connect to and communicate with the scientists whose work they are presenting. A brief afternoon spent looking up student bios at such programs showed that a large portion of accepted students came in with a master’s in a science program. These students, like me, loved science and enjoyed doing science, and had taken the time to explore that interest before moving on.

In the end it all made sense: I’m more qualified to go into a science program right now (four years of physics doesn’t leave a lot of time for non-academic writing). Taking a couple of years to do a master’s in a science would also give me the time to boost my writing resume. A part-time job working for small newspaper or student publication would give me a leg up in applying to the science writing programs. I’ll also get to be the scientist for a little while longer, without having to bind myself into a PhD track. And if I am still uncertain at the end of two years, I will be equally well set up to continue on in the PhD of my chosen science, or switch over to science writing.

The point of this plan is that it keeps my options open. Over and over I have found that the more I write my fate in stone, the less happy I am. I am continually reminded by many wiser people in my life that there are many paths to a goal, and just because there is an infrastructure in place does not mean that it must be followed or that following it will make you happier. Every experience in life is a learning process, and everything you learn makes your life richer. So I’m not going off to be a science writer the day after graduation… I’ll be a science writer once I’ve experienced being a scientist and being a writer.

As readers may have deduced from my first post a week ago, I have always had a very broad range of academic and personal interests. My dilemma is that my interests are so wide and so many that I often am hesitant to pick just one to pursue in depth, possibly out of some irrational fear that I might be locked into one subject permanently. For the last three years I have had the opportunity to satisfy all of my interests in bits and pieces, taking a class here and a class there while not confining myself to one subject area. But my time at Scripps is coming to a close, and the real world is looking very alien indeed. Where I go from here? How do I even start to pick a single career?

I first began to address these questions last summer after the realization that the job of research scientist was not for me. After much reflection about what it was I really enjoyed about science, I came to the conclusion that I liked doing science experiments and research, but it was learning about science that truly excited me. And I enjoy learning about all kinds of science, and in many different ways. I have also loved communication, and have focused a great deal of personal energy in my life to learning how to communicate effectively. It was clear from half an hour of brainstorming and furious scribbling that my ideal career would have elements of science, logic, communication, writing, and creativity. It seemed so clear that being a science writer would be the ideal job for me. Such a career would allow me to learn about new science constantly, and communicate exciting new discoveries to others and express my creativity in a variety of formats. Ah, at last I had found my dream job…

So I began the search afresh. I glued myself to Google for a week, hitting all of the major graduate program search sites and, at times, blindly searching on the web. I tried every combination of the words “science writing” and “science communication” in every department and every school I could find. I even got lucky and hit a few sites that were designed specifically for people like me that listed all of the programs focusing on science writing. In the end I’m fairly sure I found every science writing program in existence in the United States and Canada. The next step was to investigate each program briefly, looking for things like subjects covered, classes offered, and internships available. Most of the programs were dedicated to writing for medical journals, a specific branch that didn’t grab me. But once the programs that weren’t great fits were weeded out, the list was condensed down to a healthy size of eight excellent programs. Each had a variety of great classes that covered a multitude of media types and spectacular internships at great organizations.

That was when the uncertainty began to set in. I had run across one program in my search that was an awesome hybrid program: a year immersion in environmental science and a year immersion in journalism. It resulted in a dual master’s in environmental science and science writing. Among the many programs I had investigated, this one was unique in its inclusion of science with science writing. It suddenly hit me that if I went straight into a science writing program, I would be unlikely to even do classroom or lab science again, unless I switched tracks later. And if I did decide to switch tracks, it would be far more difficult to get into a science program after having been removed from science for two years. After the first bout of cold feet concerning a phD in astronomy, I was suddenly hesitant again. Was I really done with science? Sure, I didn’t want to do research permanently, but was I ready to never do it again? It seemed that no matter what choice I made, I would be cut out of one path or the other, the exact thing I feared most.

(continued in part II)