Part two

The speaker discusses their experiences with dissections in their high school biology classes and how COVID-19 impacted their career interests. They express their passion for animals and how volunteering and fostering during the pandemic solidified their desire to become a veterinarian. They also mention feeling overwhelmed and intimidated in their chemistry labs, particularly during titrations. They discuss their struggles with achieving the correct color in titrations but receiving accurate data. They also mention feeling anxious about making mistakes in bio labs and the pressure of setting a strong foundation for their future career. Finally, they express their concerns about taking future chemistry courses, particularly organic chemistry. have fun because we were we were taking out like different structures to like show them and I think that's especially like in a health class that was supposed to be like that was like their version of like a safe sex ed class for like kids we learned about like as CDs and like the menstrual cycle and things like that so to have us dissect a cow's eye feels a little out of place yeah I won't lie I was gonna say I definitely didn't do that in my health class all right yeah I don't know what that was about but then we did like a fraught dissection and like my high school bio class yeah when I was supposed to do the dissection we had like a couple different options of like what we could dissect there was a fetal pig there was because like I said very small high school it was just I think there were and there were two bio classes running at the time and so I was in honors bio and from my specific teacher I'm pretty sure there were like eight or nine of us in the class so like there were a couple of different things we could have dissected there was a frog there was a fetal pig like I said never ended up actually happening the only thing I ever dissected in that class was a flower the other bio class on the other hand did dissect some stuff I'm not entirely sure what but that was with the teacher who ended up teaching my physics class he loves bio and could talk about it for hours and so they ended up dissecting stuff a lot earlier than us so they got more done than we did I feel like one question I do have probably taking it back to COVID. COVID impacts was all of us like I think in the beginning of our high school years type of thing so it's like if how do you think that impacted your interests and how you are now with your interests like do you think if we didn't have COVID you would probably be doing something else and probably like how would you relate that to your career or biology in general because you know this podcast okay I do know that for me it was actually towards the end of high school just because of that gap year so I was a little bit ahead grade-wise but I actually think I wouldn't be in a science related career if it hadn't been for COVID. I'm gonna be honest at the time getting towards the end of high school I was actually really did not want to be in school anymore I was getting really burnt out with having been at school and so the idea of anything academic related I was over and I had found a lot of solace like in drama club and so I was becoming very passionate about like acting and that kind of stuff and I think if COVID hadn't happened that interest that renewed interest in science because of having had like deaths in the family because they were because of COVID like that interest would have never recame up and I probably would have stuck with acting so I don't think I'd be in a science related career at all I'll be completely honest I think in the sense of like wanting to go into the veterinary field I feel like it seems like one of those careers that you have when you're like when you're little you're like I want to be this yeah and then it like normally completely changes I've wanted to be a vet since I was at least in 7th or 8th grade and COVID hit at the end of my 9th grade year and so I think honestly getting to spend like time at home I was obviously around the pets I had me and my family tried to do a lot of volunteering that we could during COVID obviously like safely with the correct precautions and stuff like that but one of the things we started doing was volunteering so we started volunteering on the weekends at a cat shelter and also it was maybe a little after like we went back to school from COVID my family started fostering animals so I think my exposure and love for animals just like continued to grow during COVID because of like the volunteering and fostering that we did so I honestly think it helped like confirm the fact I want to be a vet and like this is the career path for me that's good yeah I like for me it was medicine for me was like I don't think I'm good enough to do it it's like that imposter syndrome that everyone has going into like doing like feels like what we are doing is it's like it always comes around especially during final season like yeah practical I mean lab in general like any especially in chem lab like because they set chem lab up so there's only so many of us in a lab at a time yeah more hands-on experience and I know honor can we had like a couple more people than the average chem lab but even so there was still like like not many of us so we could get more one-on-one help but it felt intimidating to have somebody like I don't feel good enough to be working in a lab like that and so every lab especially titration yes those I oh I don't like titration and I would be so nervous to have like like Jaffe saying they're watching me do a titration I was like I'm not good enough at chem for this I will say that's one funny thing um normally during AP chem when you have it in person one of the labs you do is titrations we did not have the equipment for titrations to do in my basement so I always heard like awful stories about like how awful and hard titrations are in fact they're actually my one of my favorite labs that we do in chem I don't like chemistry to save my life but I do like titrations um so you're actually like clinically insane I mean I felt mad about it but it was always I don't know every single time I walked into chem like I I just felt so like overwhelmed that's like another day I don't know last semester when we had to do titrations for chem one I definitely like I enjoyed it but it wasn't my favorite thing in the world also my titrations were awful they were bright pink like that's not where they've colored that's not the color they're supposed to be but then this is a you would not say that that's why I feel like I don't like titration it's because I feel like every time I do one I don't get the right color but then my data will be right like Jaffe would look at my data and be like no these are good numbers like these are precise you're consistent like this is good and I was like but my color is not the shade of pink but it needs to be like my was always turning out like fuchsia one thing I think is really funny well this semester last last semester we had to like physically shake like the vial that everything was in and so if you weren't mixing it enough it could very quickly change to like that bright pink color we had like this semester had this like little magnetic spinner thing that would mix it for us which I think made the titrations a lot easier but Grayson I've talked to you about titrations before and I think one thing that's really funny it'll be like I had great colors and then my data and like percent error is like a lot higher than it should be and then you'll like you said you'll mention like your color but then your pitch is extremely low your numbers are all correct and I'm like something's not adding up here that's why I don't think I like titration is because it's oh no I'm just holding my mic now guys but yeah I think I don't like titration because I can never tell how good I'm doing as I'm doing it at least titrations where we use a color indicator because of the way they work sorry guys hold on technical cool we're back we got it um but I also think I did experience that feeling I know we were talking about specific camera but I did experience it in bio lab too I think not too too much this semester because of the setup of a lot of our labs like with the formatting of like looking at things and drawing I mean I'm not an artist but like I I know that and that's why I'm not going into art so that didn't concern me but I know last semester like when we did that like the gel electrophoresis like I was like I'm gonna puncture this like I can't I'm not capable of doing something like this and then even the dissection I was like I'm gonna cut too deep I'm gonna mess something up we did we actually cut the gallbladder when we were supposed to we did mess up but it wasn't as bad of a mistake I guess as I thought we were I was gonna make and then I guess realization after though after you go through all that stress all that like oh you're not gonna do it properly or I'm not gonna make it out type of thing it's like that's like the biggest lingering thing I feel like as a college student especially if you want to go into like deep careers and not be like a computer science major where everything's all right in life and you know you're gonna get a job easily so right and I feel like it's one of those two like because we're all freshmen we're in like the intro classes like we are setting like the foundation right now so if we mess up anywhere it's like oh my god what if I can't do this and like the harder level classes exactly and I I feel like that with like the bio classes but that's also how I feel with my chem classes because obviously you guys have heard about my chemistry it's in high school I haven't had the greatest experiences with chemistry in college this semester has been a lot better than last semester still kind of interesting but I'm making it work but then like I also have another three semesters of chemistry I have to take it but that's orgo though right I have well I have orgo I have to take biochem and I have to take environmental chem yeah I think I heard about orgo is if you're a bio major you would usually be good at orgo and you might enjoy it I'm having high hopes for that and hoping like that's gonna be a clean slate same to I spent high school being worried about orgo because I got I'd like you here like make-or-break a college student but also now being in college I've heard it's a lot more like memorization than like calculations and that's personally my strong suit I can can memorize stuff for days calculations not it I mean I'm okay like basic calculations are fine but someone like gen chem one I was like crushing it I was like I'm so good at chemistry guys like maybe I should have done chem but then gen chem two like I don't know some of the calculations have been a little more difficult and I'm like never mind I was right so my biggest thing about chem two or even chem in general is like I'm just doing the calculations because like these are the numbers I'm giving these are formulas I just plug-and-chug I have no idea like what I'm doing like I don't I don't understand what's going on I think that's why that's why it's hard or it doesn't make sense to me I'm not interested in because I don't really understand what these numbers mean and you could explain to me multiple times but it just won't go in my head see that's why I feel like with gen chem one I did great it's because I could plug-and-chug easier and that's not sure some of it is plug-and-chug but like with ice charts like I do have to find the information myself and sometimes I'm not sure how to do that even with a lot of explanation like full honesty that last test with like acid base where there was a like everything was a nice chart you were never just giving the information one of my worst tests it was still passing guys I did okay but it was not as good as some of my other scores and I I just Oh calculations are not it yeah no that last that last chem exam we took was very interesting because my professor was like we were supposed to have it on April 3rd and she's like I actually don't want you to have to memorize the last stuff in between that exam in the final so she moved it to the 23rd um so we basically covered everything else for the rest of semester before that exam so it's a lot more on the exam it was like acid bases in KSP and stuff like that and you know with that comes a lot of ice charts ice charts they sort of make sense to me and like if I have time to really think about it I can figure it out but like on an exam when you're rushed it's like it's not it and there were a couple questions where I do believe ice charts were required and I I took my best educated guess on it because I didn't know where to begin and I honestly I passed the exam which is all I care about honestly that's one thing I have to say that was very different from high school and colleges high school it was like I need to shoot for like the best grade possible every time like I'm I need to be this like straight and in college like honestly as long as I pass it I'm fine whatever that was the biggest I think like shock of college for me is because I held myself to such a high standard in high school like I need to have straight A's and everything needs to be perfect in a low way and I was upset about the grade and now I'll get like a B or something on an exam I'm like let's go and I think I had that realization last semester during gen chem one long story but it was just a very interesting semester tough class tough professor tough situation overall and I was not long story short I was not doing good in that class for a solid like six or seven weeks and then after and like I was studying I was going to office hours I was spending 10 hours in the CLR every week with like or go professors teaching me stuff I got through it but I think my mindset towards the end of the semester was like as long as I can pass it with the minimum requirement to go on to gen chem to that's all that matters and then ended up doing like really well in the class by the end of it but that was like that first realization of oh I can't hold myself to the same standard as I did in high school I feel like that's also because like there's so much stress of stress and other classes that you have and everything else feels the same way I feel like college isn't hard it definitely has to be a way around it like why was it in high school we were the same kids that were like oh a Z's agent we had to like we had to struggle especially junior I don't junior was rough and all of us had to struggle but junior feels like every year here every semester here I can agree junior year was I think the roughest of the years it was one like for me at least it was my first full year back after COVID it was the same year I took AP chem I was also taking college courses at that time with the local community college for dual enrollment and I also like to be very involved in the high school and so it was like trying to find time management but I think having been in that school since I was in fifth grade I just it was like second nature like a balancing all of that but I'm getting to college I think it's trying to like you're in a different environment now that then you have been for like the last four plus years and so it's trying to like I'm trying to manage it all also trying to like be involved on campus and I think that's been like my biggest issue with that is like trying to find time to manage all the work that comes with the classes that I'm taking yeah I also feel like um for bio there's like so many YouTube videos and so many different ways of teaching a certain topic and in chemistry there's always just one way like a YouTube doesn't really help me with chemistry I don't know I said that's also a big a struggle and there doesn't have to be a way around college especially like for people that are doing all this but I just don't know what it is and I'm probably gonna figure out way too late and like my junior I'm like yeah now I know how to do everything after all these poor grades honestly I think I I think it gets easier with time yeah yeah I get that it's a new environment obviously like we've been here now for about a year so I think we're starting to get into like a flow of things but it's still definitely taking time to get used to I also I know for me in high school because of kovat and everything getting so thrown off I think I probably took that two midterms and a final somewhere and that was it throughout high school so it's also been getting used to taking like these very heavily weighted graded exams for midterms and finals like I know my chemics final that's coming up in a couple days is 25% of my grade which is a little nerve-racking I do think that's part of it is like in high school my final grade like my final exams were not like weighted into my average you know that they are here and so it was greater like any other exam and the grade in the class was not weighted like every assignment counted the same there was an exam or a homework so that having that weight is definitely different like oh these exams actually have more weight on them right when they realize it's like you have to do really well at the start of the semester that way you have like some some like legroom at the end of semester so if you end up doing poor on the final and you're like at a 98% the most it probably could go down as a 90 that is one thing I will say and that's the biggest lesson I learned this semester that's what I'm going to take into next semester that you got to really push it into first the first part of it you got to go all out yes that and I've gotten very good at using the grade calculator to determine what I need to get on my final exam to pass the course that is one thing I do I have noticed is like if you start the semester strong then when you get to the end and it's like it's no final exam like like I'm gonna be so real guys this semester is biopractical I was very worried about and I don't think I did that bad and I don't think it was like a fantastic I definitely didn't come out of there with like a 100 but I don't think I failed it either yeah and I having had like a decent grade in there because in the beginning of the semester was doing putting in so much work I think made it a little bit easier okay even if it's not my best grade I have some wiggle room right it is high enough that like any point drop isn't also worse right and with biolab to which one thing I don't fully understand biolab grades get added as 25% of our grades to our like actual biology class while chemistry it's two separate grades why I need a chem lab grades my chemistry lab grades are great like I would love to have it 25% of my actual grade for chemistry but I don't get why they don't do that I don't know but I do know that part of it is if you look at like I know in the forensic science area we are given like a map of like what courses we need to take each semester and on there when you look at bio it says bio with lab versus chem and chem lab are counted as like two different like things and so I know it's probably related to that is that bio labs not counted as its own class it's counted as part of the other course but I just don't know why they didn't do that for like chem as well that's like the chemistry department in their choices that's why the biology department they chose to do that where they like combine both things together which I guess it's like fine but like a lot of people are good at bio and they're like oh well I'd rather have that for chemistry give that extra boost into my grade I think chemistry the chem department should take some notes from the bio department in my own personal opinion I will say I don't think my grade in either one of the labs isn't that that bad but I do think my bio lab grades probably better than my chem lab grades so it would be more beneficial I think mine are about average but like in the lecture class my bio grade for like the lecture is definitely higher than like my lecture for chemistry which is why I would like that added little 25% in my grade because my lab grade is doing really well yeah um I guess taking it back to our careers I was wondering like what our what is the thing that you look forward to the most about your career like what is the thing that you think about you're like I'm gonna get to do this every day like what gives you pumped about your career to see cats and dogs there's a lot of like negative things that come with the veterinary field like working with people who might like having like a solution to help their animals and they might not be able to afford that kind of treatment like there's a lot of negative things that come with the veterinary field but at the end of the day I get to work with cats and dogs every day and that just sounds great to me so I'm so excited for that right I it's like you don't do that pre-med pre vet thing pre like forensic pathologist but you want to be in that career so bad the steps are not having it but you wouldn't be in it so bad be interactive and it's like you'll do so good like you can already see yourself doing good at that thing because you're like so passionate about it but like the whole pre thing is just not it no I I get that the thought of going to med school is like oh I'm gonna have to go through my school but that's not like being in the morgue and doing the autopsy like yes I would love to suit up and do it now yeah it's also a little nerve-wracking the thoughts of like applying because I know for vet schools and for med schools they're extremely competitive so like I try not to think about it sometimes like the thoughts of applying because like I have been asked before like what are you gonna do if you don't get in to vet school like not that the people asking think I'm not going to it's just like a genuine curiosity that they have and I'm like I don't know if I want to think about that I know I just continue working in the you can work in the field it's like a vet assistant where you can't do anywhere near as much as like you could as a vet tech or a actual veterinarian but it does build up experience like I hope in the next couple years to get it I know there is a vet clinic like right down the street from here to hopefully get a job as a vet assistant so I can start building up like hours of experience because those are needed for vet school but the thoughts of applying are a little nerve-wracking I know like um like for me personally it's like I already work at a hospital right now and I work in the emergency department I like love working there and it's like I don't know it's just like so good I'm just like I love doing this and then once I come back to school I'm like I gotta go study again it's like so weird but definitely for medicine I did an internship at like a cardiology clinic and I'm not a big fan of working at some like specific area because for me personally I just don't like seeing the same thing over and over again right like I like doing emergency department because it's like literally anything and everything comes in I just love that chaos that vibe that like rush it's just like that adrenaline is like so nice so I feel like I'll definitely probably go into emergency medicine but that's like kind of yeah yeah let's go freaks me out I'm not gonna lie I know it's extremely competitive I also know that I personally am from this like area like area of the United States like I'm from upstate New York and going to school here tonight like I prefer this coast in this area in the country and there are limited med schools in this area and this is like if I wanted to go to school near home like because I'm like six hours away from home here so like in med school within like that distance away from home again like there are very limited options and one of them's like Cornell and it's like I don't know how I like how I feel about trying to apply and get into Cornell like that's it feels like a lot of pressure to get yeah so true totally agree on I'm also from this area I'm from Mass and would prefer to stay up here but if I want to stay on this coast my options are Tufts University and Cornell University definitely two schools that I will be applying to but like at the end of the day Cornell is an Ivy League school yeah very competitive and like statistically most vet schools get over a thousand couple thousand like applications per year they can only take like a hundred maybe two like it is a very small number which makes sense why I like schools like Cornell has such at least a vet school like have such low acceptance rates but it's also it's an Ivy League school and it's like one of my dream schools in like the long run of things but that's very scary to know that if I don't get into like Tufts or Cornell I'm going out into the middle of the United States or like to the other coast and that's not where I'm from that's not what I'm used to and it's definitely really going to be interesting to see I believe that I think that's gonna look I think that's gonna end up happening to me where I'm definitely gonna apply to all these places around here but then end up getting somewhere like in Texas and now have to go to Texas readjust my life they don't have an apartment like I live by myself there's a vet school there too but it's not the school I wonder what time yeah and then you have to take the engines exam like I know my school has the MCAT you know something like that or no I don't think so there might be I might have to look at it I don't think so but then like after vet school you have to take an exam to get certified like like oh yeah it's called the naval exam and it's a multi-hour very many question exam that you have to pass to get certified to actually work as a vet yeah I know from that school we have to take like the MCAT that's like the whole entry it has to be like that's like a make it break it type of thing and that's what sucks so you have to have like good good GPA good grades good like volunteer internships good MCAT score and then even if you and if you don't get in still then that then that's where it like sucks cuz it's like the thing I do know is I don't know if they have that schools in the Caribbean but the for for med school we have one it's called SGU I don't know if you heard of it but there are they're connected they're connected really well to New York so UNH really helps you get into SGU because the prevent advisor he knows people from there oh all right so I was like Caribbean going to Caribbean not that bad like yeah I'll show you that school I like the area that's and it's so nice and it's like for residency they'll hook you up into New York oh oh that's a direct because the guy that's in charge of SGU he is also in charge in New York so it's like yeah he went to like New York so I feel like that was like my that's like my plan B plan A is like summer on here plan B would be somewhere on this I forget an option for you yeah now that's a solid plan B yeah yeah they're very connected to places in the u.s. so you're going to get like your residency here to experience here and she's also u.s. accredited so yeah oh I don't know if I answered that question like I asked what your favorite part is and then I don't think I but I guess for me I don't know I feel like it's a morbid career to like talk about what excites me about it but um I did really enjoy the dissection lab like I think human anatomy is really fascinating and I think getting to explore that daily morbid to talk about but yeah but I also the aspect of it where I'm serving the public and I'm able to help because it's determined the cause of death for purposes of like bringing to justice mm-hmm what happened and like being able to tell the family what happened even in the case of like a suicide where it's there's no one to bring to justice I'm still gonna bring like peace to a family you can get some closure out of it which is is nice from not from like an education standpoint but like from the actual career itself I know we just talked about like what we're excited for is there any part that like concerns you or makes you like a little bit nervous or questioning the field does that make sense like I think for me who always goes back to imposter gym like one of my grades whether my was my application my personal statement all that will be good enough like am I good enough to be able to go through that's like my biggest thing I think that's my biggest concern and also it's just like I don't know it's like I'm gonna do all of that work just to get into med school and then like do another couple years in a couple years and a couple years well people are like 25 straight out earning like so much money in there like engineering field or yeah I kind of agree I think that that is my biggest concern is the imposter syndrome especially because I have heard from people in the forensics field physically have I never goes away because of the pressure of our job and like that we're at it's like am I good enough I won't be working scenes but I know for people who are crime scenes it's like am I good enough to be collecting evidence at this crime scene like this is a high-stakes job like one mistake has detrimental like consequences and so that imposter syndrome of like oh do I know what I'm doing yeah I'm not to be doing this what if I mess up like there's a lot of pressure that can ride on jobs like that and I think any job in the medical field or like veterinary field is the same way especially like veterinary school like I can't imagine having like an animal's freak you out but that would freak me out which is why I know we talked about this but I think it's really interesting sometimes