1. When I think of the path I took in my science career & it is clearly a long series of serendipities. I would not be doing what I am doing today if it wasn't for an acquaintance's bad acid trip, me making a desperation phone call, & 2 other students turning down PhD positions.

2. In 1st year a friend of mine & myself walked out of Phys 101 class & ran into his acquaintance sitting on a bench looking very ill. He explained he was recovering from a really bad acid trip & asked us to keep him company. We got chatting & I asked him what his major was.

3. The acquaintance said "molecular genetics & molecular biology" & I said "what's that?", I had never heard of that field, it didn't occur to me this was something people studied. After he explained, I was convinced that this was what I wanted to do. It ended up being my major.

4. later, as a 1st gen student it never occurred to me until late in the game that I could or should try to work in a lab. I tried to get into a lab in 3rd year but my grades were'nt good, no one would take me & I didn't know how to find someone who'll let me work in their lab

5. Over the summer, a friend suggested that in my last year I try to do a lab project course for credit, but still I needed to find a lab. I didn't know how to do that either but they said they heard of someone looking for students and gave me their contact info.

6. Every day in august I called that person's phone # & no luck (it was 1995 not everyone was good with email). So I gave up. But for some reason in the first week of school I decided to try one last time. They picked up, said they were away all summer & asked when I could start.

7. I had such an amazing time working in that lab that I knew I wanted to go to grad school. But here again, my grades got in the way, only one department accepted me, & almost none of them worked on what I was interested in (developmental biology).

8. Eventually I found one PI who was wonderful & was willing to take me on, I was excited but what their lab did was not exactly a good fit w/ my interests. This very wise PI knew that & asked if I knew about the new PI the department just hired. I didn't.

9. Turned out that new PI was a much better fit with what I wanted to do, but the problem was they had two other candidates who were interested in the one open position they had. I was out of luck. Then both these students decided to go to other places. The grad spot was mine!

10. These incidents which had profound influence of my career path were completely out of my control. It mattered that when presented w/ the opportunity I accepted it, so showing up & trying counts, being flexible matters. But it is inescapable that luck plays a tremendous part.

11. This means that the margins that shape science careers are often so narrow, there is so much stochastic noise that shapes our path. This is not always reflected in the narrative of how science career stories are told. Stochastic noise doesn't make for a neatly packaged story.

12. I think about this now because COVID is going to make so many bright promising career paths so much harder. We need to work harder, for years to come, to remember & acknowledge the role of luck & be understanding & considerate in assessing the career paths of those impacted.