It’s just a typical Saturday here. I’m procrastinating and avoiding work by worrying about what I’m going to do with the rest of my life.
I just submitted my departmental honors thesis. What a relief! I have my thesis defense next week. The semester is coming to a close. I took my last exams (not including finals) of my undergraduate career yesterday. Thursday was my last lab too. I have three more days of class and then finals start the following Monday. I have 4 lab reports, a poster, and my thesis defense to do by the end of next week. I have 2 finals and the MFATs (major field assessment test) week after next and graduation is May 12th. I’m not as excited as I thought I’d be, more relieved than anything else.
As for graduate school, I have decided to take at least a semester off. Being unemployed this semester has really eaten into my savings and I need to work for a while before I go back to being a poor student. Also, I want to move across the country for school and there’s no way we can afford it now that I have been living off of my savings instead of actually saving money for the move.
I still haven’t decided which route I want to go. I’m really leaning towards a CNM program instead of a chemistry program. If I do decide to go the chemistry route, I won’t be going straight into my PhD, I’ll get my masters first and see if I want to continue. I’m just not as passionate about chemistry as I think I should be to go into a PhD program. Who knows, maybe it’s the past 3 semesters that have beaten me down and I’m just too tired to be excited about chemistry right now.
I used to think that I wanted to go to medical school. I always wanted to be an OB-GYN. I don’t think I could do that anymore. The more research that I’ve done about pregnancy and birth while we’ve been TTC, the less and less I like the philosophy that many OBs have. I much prefer the reduced medical intervention, natural side of childbirth. Granted, I won’t be the one birthing the baby, but that’s what I agree with. I know med school wouldn’t change my philosophy, but I don’t think I could be taught and eventually practice in a setting that had such a different philosophy regarding childbirth. That’s where the CNM comes from. It may seem really random considering that I’m a chem major, but a lot of chem majors go on to medical school. Pre-med students at my school are either bio majors with chem minors or chem majors with bio minors.
Who knows what I’ll do, but suggestions are always welcome!
