A Summer In The Dark

During the fall of my sophomore year, I declared a chemistry major and began searching for opportunities to quench the insatiable thirst for knowledge that had started the instant I had stepped onto a college campus. I was only taking general chemistry, but I scoured the internet for weeks searching for something I could do with my following summer. I knew I needed a job, but I was hoping that there was some way that I could avoid flipping burgers like the rest of my cohorts. Not that I was too good for it, I just preferred to exhaust my alternatives before it came to that. I came across “research experiences for undergraduates,” or REUs, and randomly selected one to apply to–at the University of Pittsburgh. I had passed the deadline on many of the others, and, though I did not think I had a chance at getting accepted, thought it worth the try.

A few weeks later, a Dr. Joseph Grabowski emailed me regarding my application, offering me 5K to come up to Pittsburgh and do research for the summer. Talk about jaw-dropping. I was a sophomore with only genchem under my belt. I must have had some amazing letters of recommendation to get a chance like this. Scared, but excited, I accepted this generous offer in hopes that I could use this opportunity to improve myself and meet others interested in science. 

To be continued…

Topics to cover:

 - Intro
- New Friends
- Learning The Hard Way
- People Are Not As They Seem
- Some People Are
- In The Dark
- Love and Some Verses
- Squeezing Metaphorical Juice Out of Pittsburgh
- These Things I Have Learned