Ana, ‘13

Last Friday I had to run a reaction for research that had to run for 3 hours. I set it up around 1pm, and went back to the lab to stop it around 4pm. My professor came in saying that someone from the Collegian was supposed to come take photos in the lab around 4pm, because they wanted to write an article about the grant he had just received. But as any journalists that respect themselves, they were about half an hour late. So when they finally came, I was already done, getting ready to wash glassware and leave the lab. Of course there was nobody else working on a Friday at 4m, so they wanted a photo of me and my professor pretending to teach me something. So I pretended to do something more interesting than washing glassware. They took a few pictures and left, and my life went back to normal.

Until yesterday, when the stuff below appeared on the first page of the Collegian:

I found out about that on Thursday morning, in between my 2 tests of the day. Then strange things started happening to me. Take only D-Hall for example. Yesterday, on my way to D-Hall, I met my academic advisor that greeted me with “nice photo”! When I went to the D-Hall entrance to swipe my card, I noticed that the lady had on her desk several Collegians, all with my photo coming out. So as she swiped my card, she looked at me, then at the newspaper, then stared at me again. Later in D-Hall, a friend came to me with the newspaper in her hand saying: “Is this you???” Yet the weirdest thing happened to me today, still in D-Hall. This random person came to me saying: “Are you the famous person from the newspaper???” So many people that I know or that I don’t know came to me lately saying that they saw me on the Collegian. Yes, at the moment, I am a famous person on this campus.

So what amazing thing did I do to get on the first page? Well…nothing! That article was about how awesome my research advisor is. Yes, he did get a huge grant, and in my opinion just an article in the Collegian (that you can find here) doesn’t do it justice. It’s a great achievement! But what do I have to do with it? Nothing! I am not even working on the projects that got these funds! I am just incredibly lucky for getting to work in one of the greatest research groups on campus, and . Now because of that photo, people will imagine that I had more to do with that grant than just being the only student in the lab when that photo was taken, and will have higher expectation of me, and will probably be disappointed when I don’t rise to them.

Our research group is so great, that its members go on to fulfill their career in the best way possible, no matter what it is. For example, a senior currently working in my lab got accepted to medical school as a JUNIOR! And to keep things in the area where I want to go, a student who graduated 2 years ago from the lab is now a graduate student at Berkeley, one of the 2 best doctoral programs in organic chemistry in the country. Another student, currently a senior in the lab, was recently accepted to all the graduate schools she applied to, and is probably going Harvard, that has the other of the best 2 doctoral programs. So my research advisor seems to have developed a trend of sending one student to an incredibly great grad school every two years. And guess who is applying in 2 years!!!

If only things were so simple! Realistically speaking, I don’t have their achievements to help me get into a similar program. The guy from Berkeley has done 5 summers at UR, and the girl who’s headed to Harvard has had one paper published for the research she has done freshman year! I have neither of those! In addition, preparing for graduate school at this level requires dedication of almost 100% of your time. But I also have my Environmental Studies major to take care of, and connecting environmental interests that I am unable to give up. The same goes with the League of Romanian Students Abroad. In the past, I tried to detach myself from those activities during exam periods, but I found myself unable to stop worrying about what was going on, checking my email and the progress of my projects. I know I am involved in way too many things, but I also gave up on the idea of giving them up! I hope, however, that I will do my best to maximize in all ways possible the incredible luck I had to work in this amazing research lab, that has already made me famous!