All majors come with their own difficulties, but science majors know some unique struggles. From condescending professors to lazy lab partners, we can deal with a lot, but these might be some of the highlights...
1. You spend hours every week in lab. In addition to your lecture.
So while your peers spend an average of three hours in class, you spend an average of seven hours-- and all for the same number of credits.
2. “I can’t. I have lab” is literally the story of your life.
3. It’s spring! Too bad you have to go to lab several afternoons each week.
While all your friends are tanning on the green, you’re stuck in a depressing lab room perpetuating your paleness.
4. Pants and close-toed shoes.
Oh, and when you finally get to leave lab, you still have to go home and change before you can even think about sitting outside because you’re wearing pants! Oh the lab life.
5. You honestly can’t write a paper for a humanities class.
Lab report on the identification of an unknown substance? Easy. 20-page essay on the fall of the Roman Empire? Run for your life.
6. Your exam grades are pathetic.
You’re used to the average exam grade being in the 60’s or 70’s. Some professors even leave you to suffer with an average below that. Such is life.
7. Working with dangerous chemicals or dissecting animals doesn’t phase you.
8. You are surrounded by the stress associated with being pre-med.
Even though you might not be pre-med, the stress is there. You could say stress is part of the job.
9. Microsoft Word can't understand what you're trying to say.
Most of your Word documents are full of those annoying red lines because Word doesn’t recognize half the mumbo-jumbo you are required to know. This also further contributes to your stress because you have absolutely no idea how to spell anything.
10. Taking a class outside of your major is both a breath of fresh air and a culture shock.
Wait a minute, you’re telling me that we actually get to talk in these classes? I don’t have to scramble to write down every word that comes out of my professor’s mouth until my hand falls off?
11. Exams and lab reports are never ending.
Literally every week that you have an exam or lab report due, you wish you had picked another major.
12. When you find out your final is not cumulative you cry tears of joy.
13. You make mistakes and break things.
Breaking an expensive piece of equipment doesn’t phase you because you are in a learning environment and it is expected that you will make mistakes. However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn't go home and cry because of the way your professor yelled at you.
14. Your friends might think you're a nerd.
You get excited when what you’ve learned is actually applicable to everyday life. (i.e. physio units!!). But when you tell someone they stare at you like you're an alien.
15. You learn on many levels.
In one class you’re talking about big things like ecology, and then in another you’re learning about super small things like atoms. Because making you think on every single level is definitely NOT cruel.
16. You make crazy decisions.
You question your sanity when you choose to work in a professor’s lab, which consumes all of your non-existent free time.
17. Science becomes your life.
You literally dream about science before exams because it consumes all aspects of your life. There is no escaping.
18. You die a little when you realize you don't understand anything.
Hard as you may try, things will go over your head. And odds are, your professor doesn't care that no one in the class understands, so you just fall into the black hole of confusion.
19. You have no social life.
Your non-science friends never see you because even on Saturday nights, you can be found in the library. Or in bed. But usually the library because who has time for sleep when you have a test to study for?
But at the end of the day, we love our major. Your friends will say they couldn’t do what you do. Well, we probably couldn't do what they do either. Hence the “run for your life” response to a paper. Science is our life and we wouldn’t change a thing.
