My love for research has really died out over the course of my PhD. Or, I should say, my drive to do my own research. I have been really worried that this extended to my love of science.

But this afternoon I edited my friend's research proposal and it was SO COOL.

1/2

This helped me realize that I may not be interested in actively doing research anymore, but my love of chemistry is still there. My love and drive just shows up in teaching, motivating and encouraging others in their love of chemistry. And I am really okay with that.

2/2

I lied. I have more. I am currently really enjoying taking things I have learned in different research seminars and trying to think of how I could implement them in a teaching lab. For example, with my own research, I have looked at fluorescence quenching kinetics with metals...

and halides. I wonder how it would work to implement these types of experiments into teaching labs to help students really think about what quenching does and some of the ramifications of that quenching behavior (my stuff shows up through formation of reactive intermediates).

So the upshot is, I find it more interesting to design/reconfigure labs to implement these kinds of experiments and ideas to hopefully help students see the point of this chemistry. Which I think, in this day and age, is an important thing for people to see.

Especially if they don't like chemistry, or are intimidated by it. What are the applications of chemistry? Why do we care? What is it used for? How does it show up? This is what excites me. To say nothing of supporting students in all the ways they might need my support.