Personal Story - Akshaya Ganesh

The scientific method requires that a researcher develop a hypothesis, tests it through various means, and then modifies the hypothesis on the basis of the outcome of tests and experiments. In other words, make a prediction, test it out, and then change your projection as required. Well, sometimes, in life our predictions are bound to be wrong.  

The natural culmination of 12 years of public school and 4 years of an undergraduate degree is a job and a plan, definitely not 5-6 more years of school. Yet, somehow, convinced by a growingly restrictive job market, I arrived at my destination. A PhD.  

Of course, I’ve always been a curious mind and thirsted for knowledge of all types. My own parents quickly grew tired of my incessant questions on anything and everything from “Why is the sky so blue?” and “Why are plants green?” to “Do other people experience consciousness the same way that I do?”, “Is God real?”, and my personal favorite “What happens when we die?”. Science has always been there for me, providing exceedingly detailed answers to my equally complex questions along with evidence - god, the evidence. This is the important part. I have always refused to accept an answer unless there exists some factual basis. This irritated my mother, especially, to no end. My poor, lovely mother who wanted a child she could decorate in bows and frills, but received me, who hated all fancy and delicate fabrics. My poor mother who had more than enough to fill not only her own plate, but three or four backup plates, and simply wanted a child who’d do as she asked with little pushback, got me who required an extensive backstory and explanation for every old wives tale or Indian superstition she tried to instill in me. It was when my father bought me a book, not so subtly titled “Questions and Their Answers”, that I was finally quiet.  

Somewhere around this time, I began to explore other interests. After all, one must be extremely well rounded in their education in order to be successful. At 12 years old, this was very important to me. It’s a widely known stereotype that to Indian parents, their child can only have 3 possible futures; doctor, engineer, or lawyer. In reality, there are a few more options out there. I take a lot of pride in the fact that my parents never fit into that stereotype. My emotional, creative, wildly intelligent father has always been, and continues to be, a man of many passions. A lover of dancing and singing (he was and is a beautiful singer) as well as physics and astronomy, he’d never once pushed me towards one thing or another. In fact, he’d proudly taken up the designation of “Dance Dad” and felt it more deeply than anyone else when I’d informed him that I, in fact, hated dancing and could not sing to save my life. I was a voracious reader, a budding writer, and a connoisseur of all things artistic. I took up the violin, spent summers in drawing lessons and dance class, and spent hours daydreaming.  

All of this conjecture to say I wanted to  know about everything. Not business of course, or math - god forbid, but everything else. The natural conclusion to a mind predisposed to enjoy learning, is a career path that specifically puts you in the highest echelons of said learning. Science, in that way, was perfect. There are an infinite amount of questions to be answered, requiring intense and complex study that’s backed up by carefully curated evidence. This is what distinguishes science from the other subjects for me. In science, there’s a specific right answer. Whereas, the other subjects, arts, history, social sciences, there are innumerable ways to study a phenomenon and equally as many interpretations of such phenomena. Man created economics, government, the principles of psychology, the arts, to explain social behavior. Nobody created science. The earth, the stars, the cells within our body, all existed prior to any discovery. In a way this is a sort of prehistoric religion that has existed since the creation of  the universe, and will continue  to exist long after the human race has been forgotten on this planet. The finality is soothing to my anxious mind. This is not to make the statement that science is superior to any other subjects, as this is absolutely not the case, but rather to comment on the strict and defined nature of said field of study. As adolescents, we are forced to embark on a single path that takes us through university and into our careers. At 18 years old, we’re expected to know exactly what we want to do with our lives and there’s very little room for error.  

When I was young, I wanted desperately to be a doctor. I was highly empathetic, in tune to the emotions of everyone around me, and I had a keen desire to help anyone and everyone. I’d watch hours of Discovery Channel, Mystery Diagnosis, and National Geographic. I wanted to be a neurosurgeon, a cardiothoracic surgeon, an OB/GYN, a veterinarian (although this was short lived when I found out that I couldn’t just be a doctor for the cute not so smelly animals), I was interested in it all.  When I was 10 years old, after my birthday party, my father and I sat together to watch a Discovery Channel documentary (as was a tradition of ours). This one in particular was about Ebola. As I watched the narrator describe the way the victim would suffer slowly, leaky epithelia that spilt blood from every possible open orifice, a morbid curiosity took seed in my mind. That night, as I cried myself to sleep  absolutely convinced that I was going to get ebola and die an even more horrific and painful death than that which I had seen in the documentary (I lived in extremely suburban New Jersey, there was absolutely no chance I was going to get Ebola), I wondered what other terrifying types of illnesses exist out there. (Unfortunately, my proclivity towards hypochondriac tendencies, the dramatics, and intense bouts of unfounded anxiety have only been bolstered as the years have gone on). Eventually, it became very clear (after multiple extremely embarrassing instances of fainting in front of far too many people) that I could not handle being around blood. This combined with the cutthroat, isolating environment of premedical education, quickly ousted me from those ranks. I didn’t love science any less though. In my undergraduate virology class (shoutout to our very own Dr. Meg Scull)  I sat there dreaming fantastical images of tiny viruses swarming and invading immune cells, hijacking the host cell replication machinery to enact their own nefarious plans. A new desire came to me. I could study this, I thought. I could study how infectious pathogens, the original evil masterminds of nature, plot their world domination and how the human race continues to evade their plans. After a brief, unfruitful stint in engineering (the evidence of which sits in a rather elaborate frame in my parents home in the form of a bachelor's degree), I made my move.  

Somehow, I found myself a PhD student in a prestigious program, in a well sought after lab, doing well sought out research. All of these things should feel extremely fulfilling, especially to my inner child whose spirit of inquiry is now allowed to roam free, yet it feels more daunting than expected. Perhaps this is my own singular experience. There is so much out there to know, such a wealth of information that I don’t even know what I don’t know. This is the beautiful thing about academia. Everyone's an expert in their own niche field. In that way, the graduate school experience is the great leveler. I find myself sitting next to highly accomplished scientists, both of us admitting our lack of knowledge on a particular subject. I’ve found myself meeting so many interesting people, some of which I’m convinced I’d never have the chance to interact with outside of my insular bubble. To have a support system that knows specifically all of the things you are going through, one that you don’t have to explain yourself to has been one of the great joys of my life.  

I apologize for the incredibly cliche thing I’m about to say, but throughout the twists and turns that my life has taken I never once thought that this would be the destination. I’d spent many years of my life feeling as if I could only be made up of singulars. A singular vision, a singular interest, a singular future. But, I, as do all of us, contain multitudes. I felt like a failure when I was 12 and stopped writing. I felt like a failure when I was 19 and realized that I didn’t want to be a doctor anymore. I felt like a failure when I joined my PhD program and stood in awe of my peers and all that they had already accomplished. I’m happy to say that now, most days at least, I don’t feel like a failure. I look at the amalgamation of things I’ve accomplished in my life, and see something worth salvaging and building up. To my 10 year old self who loved to write stories, I’m still doing that to this day! To my 15 year old self who adored playing the violin, I’ve recently picked that back up as well. To my 19 year old self who had no idea where her future would take her, you’re doing alright kid. You can even call yourself a doctor at the end of this! So, what’s the conclusion of this hypothesis? I’m still conducting experiments to figure it out, but when I do you’ll be the first to know.