Pivoting Dreams: How a Random Email Changed My Career Path

I made a covenant with the Holy Spirit to share my testimony when it was all over. This testimony is an amalgamation of several testimonies along the way.  

In May 2020, I graduated from Emory University with a B.S. in Chemistry. I planned to take a year off to prepare for the MCAT and apply the following cycle, so I joined Teach for America and began the preparation process. As I prepped, I realized I was academically fatigued; the idea of going back to school was daunting, and I was uncertain about my desire to do so. I spent my first six months teaching and coming to terms with my decision to no longer pursue medicine. A scary thought- If not medicine, what will I do? I chased medicine since I was seven and had little time to explore other passions. But by the grace of God on a random morning in January 2021, I received an email about a program called ACS Bridge. The program’s goal, funded by the American Chemical Society was to increase the number of chemical science PhDs awarded to underrepresented students. I saw this as an opportunity to move forward in my career because, while I enjoyed teaching it was not the career for me. I took a plunge and submitted my application to be viewed by several universities across the state.

To my surprise, my application gained interest from four universities- the University of California San Diego, Florida State University, the University of Houston, and the Georgia Institute of Technology. From my perspective, the best interview was with UCSD while my worst interview was with Georgia Tech. In the Georgia Tech interview, I distinctly remember stumbling over my words, sweating through my shirt, and rambling after each question. After all the interviews, I was set on UCSD; after all it was my best interview, and I was excited to move to California. But as we know “man plans, and God laughs”. I did not get accepted to UCSD but instead got accepted to Georgia Tech. I am now a current grad student at the Georgia Institute of Technology and my journey to Tech was not linear but it was mine.  All my life, God has directed my path, and it is not by coincidence or luck that I found myself at Tech. It has taken a while to truly appreciate and understand why God led me here but it is a decision I will never take for granted. 

Edited by Meik Lee