What do you want to do when you grow up?

A couple of months ago, I was invited to give a talk to future biomedical engineers at Hopkins. The talk is for a class called "BME in the Real World" and happens to be tomorrow. I was told I can pretty much talk about whatever it is I wanted, so long as it has to do with how I ended up where I am.

Well, as I was putting together my presentation, it got me thinking about it all. When I was really young, I wanted to be a teacher, because that's the only thing I ever saw women doing back then. My Mom made clothes for a living, and I didn't see myself doing that. As I got older, I wanted to be a doctor - a radiologist to be exact. I knew even then that I would not have a good bedside manner. Then I wanted to cure the common cold, then cancer. Then I went to engineering school for no other reason at the time other than I was really good at math and physics. Then I wanted to go to grad school - partially because I wanted to hold off getting a real job and partially because I didn't feel like I was finished learning yet.

When I entered grad school, I had dreams of finishing in 5 years, doing a post-doc and becoming a professor. Doing great research. Having my name published and becoming a world renowned expert at ... well, something. Then getting the Ph.D. became a means to an end. I no longer wanted to do great research and learned, through my TA experience, that I really do love teaching (hey, we're back to wanting to teach again). That was truly the most satisfying part of my grad school life - watching students learn. But I no longer wanted to jump through the rest of the hoops to get there - it was too unsatisfying, too scary and too depressing.


So I am here. And I love my job and get great satisfaction from it. I have yet to be bored with anything that I do. There are annoyances, as with everything. And there are days I don't want to come. But, for the most part, I like it here. And I will probably continue to like it until I no longer have anything to learn.

A long time ago, I figured out that I am happiest so long as I am learning. If I ever get to the point where I feel I have nothing more to learn, I know I need a change. I knew it was time to wrap up my Ph.D. when I hit that point. I have not yet hit that point here. I'm not sure I will anytime soon. Which is good, I suppose, cuz I like it here.