How I Realized I was Capable of more

Don’t make the mistake of limiting your potential

Everyone is capable of excellence. It takes time and experience to help you realize your potential. In my case, it took an amicable breakup to push me in the right direction.

My relationship with science — and a guy

I didn’t enjoy my high school science or math courses because I never seemed to grasp the concepts as fast as my peers. The classes were interesting, sure, but when you’re bad at something, it’s something to be avoided.

Fast forward to college and I had zero clue what major I could possibly do. I didn’t think I could succeed with a difficult major. Business and Psychology seemed the easiest to me, so I tried both. I ended up keeping my psychology major throughout my time in college, but this story isn’t about that.

I was bored with my psychology classes. My teachers were fantastic and engaging, but the available courses repeated similar concepts over and over. You can only learn about the Stanford Prison Experiment so many times.

I was extremely successful within the psychology major, getting into Psi Chi, the International Honor Society in Psychology, but I felt unfulfilled. After doing varsity sports in high school, I didn’t want to continue competing in college. I didn’t like any of the club offerings. I needed another major.

My boyfriend at the time was an incoming pre-med and neuroscience major. Within the first month of our relationship, I realized I was a better student than him. If he could become a neuroscientist, then so could I.

When I arrived at college, I didn’t look into the natural science majors because I never did well in science compared to my high school peers.

*I later realized this was due to my not being suited for an extremely fast-paced curriculum like the one my high school followed.*

My boyfriend at the time was an incoming pre-med and neuroscience major. Within the first month of our relationship, I realized I was a better student than him. If he could become a neuroscientist, then so could I. Although science always interested me, it wasn’t in my future — until I took a good long look at myself after my realization.

It was a long look — I finally enrolled in Neuroscience 101 my sophomore year, nearly eleven months after realizing I might be able to swing it.

Overcoming emotional obstacles

Neuroscience 101 was terrifying. Every exam’s questions were short answers with no multiple-choice to be seen. The teacher was one of the big shots at the school and got most of the laboratory funding set aside for the sciences. He would pick his students from the introductory class to work in his laboratory. I was invited to a lab tour which started with him decapitating unborn rats and ended with required dissection participation.

The professor called himself “Rat Satan”. It was traumatizing.

Studying neuroscience never got easier. There was what seemed to be an unlimited catalog of content to remember, alongside dissection-based exams and working with live laboratory animals — which was extremely difficult, both logistically and mentally.

“Nevertheless, she persisted” — Author unknown

In order to graduate with a neuroscience degree, proficiency in chemistry, biology, and statistics is required. Statistics was particularly infamous at my school, as the majority of majors needed to take it and the professors failed people regularly. I got a 42 on my first test. A few months later, I got an 100 on my final exam. My ex-boyfriend, who inspired my major change, failed statistics three times.

At the end of my time in college, I graduated with a Bachelor’s in Neuroscience and Psychology with Civic Honors. I was inducted into Nu Rho Psi, the National Honor Society in Neuroscience.

I was never the best student. My final overall GPA was a 3.4. It’s certainly good, but nothing spectacular. Not Harvard or Brown worthy. But for someone who did miserably in all her high school science courses, it’s quite the achievement.

Notably, my inspirational ex-boyfriend decided he actually wasn’t all that interested in neuroscience and instead graduated with a degree in public health. [We both changed our majors sophomore year, after all.] He has a very successful career doing what he loves and we are best friends to this day.

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