What I Did with My College Degree

My own career path is a vivid illustration of the fact that you need not decide on a definitive vocation during high school, college, or even graduate school. Indeed, unless you have a distinct calling that requires very specific preparatory steps (priest, medical doctor, astronaut, etc.), higher education represents a great opportunity to explore your interests while honing your analytical and reasoning abilities. Armed with these abilities, you can set off on your own unique career journey.

I graduated from a small liberal arts college in the Midwest with a BA in Chemistry and Mathematics. Chemistry paid the bills through scholarships, while math became the "other woman" of my undergraduate years. Though I maintained a love and deep interest in chemistry, my somewhat unexpected dalliances with math were the first indication that my life's work may not be found over a straight and narrow path to a chemistry laboratory. Without a clear direction and feeling that my learning was not complete, I enrolled in the Ph. D. program of the Chemistry department of a large university in the Big Ten.

Early in my doctoral program, I met a group of professors and students who introduced me to the idea of computational chemistry, wherein researchers use computer simulation models to make predictions about chemical systems. This seemed like a natural fit for me, as it allowed me to further explore my interest in both chemistry and math. As luck would have it, one of the first classes that I took was taught by a newly-minted professor who was in the early stages of building his research program. I soon joined his group and found that the simulation software that we needed to conduct our computational studies didn't actually exist: we would have to write it ourselves. This was a fairly daunting idea to me, as I had slugged through my one undergraduate programming course, emerging with a pretty good grade but not much in the way of lasting understanding. After a few months of intensive algorithm derivation and hardcore code development, though, I was hooked. I knew then that, whatever specific career path I took, there would likely always be some component of software development involved.

With my new Ph. D. in hand, I moved on to a DoD research lab, where I helped scientists to make good use of computational chemistry software to enhance their research efforts. This role allowed me access to some very interesting research projects, but afforded me little opportunity to work on the software development side of the aisle, where I really wanted to be. Coupled with a demanding travel schedule, this lack of technical grease on my hands made it an easy decision for me to accept a position developing informatics-type software for a major chemical publishing house. Over the next several years, I would find my niche, using the latest software technologies to cull useful chemistry information from raw data.

A few years ago, for family and geographical reasons, I moved back to my home State, and I've been working since then in the pharmaceutical industry. During that time, I've developed software to address all parts of the business, from chemistry simulations for drug discovery to chemical tracking systems to payroll management packages. And, as April 2010 dawns, I'm preparing to open a new professional chapter, as I'm heading back to academia to work in research software development at my graduate alma mater. I'm excited to be back among the hardcore researchers and the high-performance computing environment where I first earned my software chops.

An academic degree is truly a starting point rather than the end of a journey. Your degree not only helps you to get where you want to be in life, but it can also afford you the opportunity to define your own path and fine-tune your career as you go. Enjoy the trip!