Like I mentioned the other day, this week and next will be the Macro Moments series where I have guests come over to Approaching Joy and share their stories of major life change. Today's author, Courtney, was actually the first person I asked, and I am excited that even though she doesn't blog she said yes. Enjoy.
Catchy title, huh? I’ll explain that in a minute. First, I think introductions are in order. My name is Courtney and I’ve known Paige for about 10 years now (wow, I can’t believe it’s been that long). We met way back in college and have been friends ever since. I follow Paige’s adventures through her blog (which, I must say, is AMAZING). When she asked me to contribute a piece for her series on major life changes, I was honored, excited, and a little terrified – after all, I’ve never written for a blog and Paige is an incredible blogger, so that’s a lot to live up to! I have carefully considered the topic and here is the story that I’d like to share… and yes, it involves green pigs.
I mentioned that Paige and I met in college. At the time, I was an Animal Science major who (like most Animal Science Majors) was considering going to vet school. However, after some soul searching, and several long hours working for my local vet, I ultimately decided that the right path for me was Grad School. So, with a little work, several graciously written letters of recommendation, and a WHOLE LOT of luck, I found myself as the newest grad student at one of the top research labs in the country - Dr. Prather’s lab at the University of Missouri in Columbia. It was the outstanding biomedical research models that drew me to this lab. Fun Fact: Did you know that of all the non-primate mammals, the pig and its organs are the most similar to humans? This makes pigs great candidates for a researching human disease and possible treatments.
The Prather lab group works primarily with early embryo development in pigs. They are also the only lab in the US that is consistently able to produce cloned pigs. It’s through the cloning process that this lab has produced research models for cardiovascular disease, for cystic fibrosis, and even possible candidates for xenotransplantation. (Xenotransplantation is the transplantation of living cells, tissues or organs from one species to another – in this particular case, the Prather lab group is working on pigs that could serve as organ donors to the over 100,000 Americans who are waiting on a lifesaving organ transplant.) So, it’s easy to see why I was drawn to this ground breaking lab and the exciting research that I would get to take part in there.
In 2005, I started a dual program, working on my Masters and my Ph.D. at the same time. Of course, my family came up for a tour, and I had the opportunity to show them some of the cloned pigs. Of all the amazing animals they got to see – it was the “Green Pigs” that stuck with them.
The Enhanced Green Florescent Protein (EGFP) pigs were always stealing the lime light (yes – that was a very bad pun). These are transgenic pigs, which is a fancy way of saying that they have a gene from another species inserted in their DNA. In this case, a gene derived from jellyfish that causes a certain protein in their cells to glow green under UV light. Why you ask? This fluorescence serves as a quick and easy tissue marker for research. Shining a light on tissue to see if it glows is much faster and easier than running several long, tedious lab tests on a sample to see if the protein you’re looking for is present. Plus – it’s a really cool party trick.
During my time at Mizzou, I worked on several amazing projects (most of which didn’t involve green pigs), but whenever anyone asked my mom what I was doing, she would always say “Courtney works in a lab that makes green pigs.” In hindsight, I guess that was a simpler and more interesting answer than trying to explain all of the technical “science-y” parts of my job.
On the whole, that was a very happy time for me. I absolutely adored the city of Columbia. I loved my lab mates and my boss, and I thoroughly enjoyed my classes and teaching. However, as I got deeper into to research, I realized that it was going to mean a lot of long hours spent indoors, in a quiet lab, often without other people around. Perhaps even more frustrating, it also meant failure – LOTS of failure. I had never encountered any hurdle in my life that with enough time, study, and effort, I couldn’t overcome. Research however, is a different beast altogether. Sometimes, there are no answers. Sometimes, even when you do everything right, things don’t work and no matter how many tests you run, you can’t figure out why. This began to wear on me, and I began to question if I had made the right choice.
Three years in, I had completed my Master’s Degree and was over halfway through the requirements for my Ph.D. I was also coming to realize that I could no longer ignore that nagging voice in my head that kept telling me to change my path – that research wasn’t for me. I think I resisted that voice as long as I did because I believed so strongly in the important work that the lab was doing. However, at some point, I had to accept that – although I believed in and supported the work – I wasn’t the one that was meant to do it. Research and my personality weren’t a match. I needed to be around people, I needed something that, with hard work, I was relatively assured of success instead of failure. So, I knew that it was a “now or never” moment and I had to decide whether to tough it out or change my path completely.
I weighed my options: Although I was up to my eyeballs in student loans, I had put in 3 long years of hard work, and I am not a quitter. The idea of leaving my Ph.D. unfinished turned my stomach. On the flip side – completing that Ph.D. meant at least another 3 years’ worth of loans I wasn’t sure I could afford and a title on my resume that would make me virtually un-hirable outside of my narrow field of science. After many agonizing weeks of thinking about it, praying about it, and talking to my family and friends about it, I decided to leave school - Ph.D. unfinished.
I knew I needed to look for a job, but had no idea what direction to go. I called the Department Chair from my undergraduate university, a man I had worked for 3 out of my 4 years at college, and a man who I deeply respected. I told him about what I had decided and asked, “Doc, what do I do?” He replied “You go into Sales and Marketing.” At this point I laughed because I was sure he was joking. I said, “Doc, I don’t have a business degree, I’ve never had a marketing class, and I have no sales experience.” To which, in his infinite wisdom, he replied, “You like to talk, you’ll be fine.”
A few short months later, I was hired into the Marketing Department of a Ranch Equipment company in east Texas. I picked up and moved to a town where I knew no one. Today, I am the Director of Public Relations for that company. During my time in Texas, I reconnected with an old college classmate. That classmate is now my husband of two and a half years. So, it may not be the path I started on, and it’s definitely not green pigs, but it’s my life. I am lucky and blessed to live each day of it.
Change – it’s inevitable in all of our lives, no matter how long we may resist it. If this experience has taught me anything, it’s to embrace change. Although it’s often scary, and its path uncertain, the adventures you encounter along the way are exhilarating and its results are life-altering. Change teaches us so many things – like how to ask for help and how to rely on ourselves. From the confusion, we find clarity and on the other side of uncertainty, we often find joy. I think I feel the winds of change starting to blow through my life again… this time, I’m ready for them.
What do you think guys-
Do you embrace change or run from it?
Have you ever had such an interesting job?!?