Mom, Dad, I’m Not Taking the MCAT

Filed under: About Rattlesnakes — Posted by Jim Smith on May 5, 2007

“You could be a doctor, an environmental lawyer, or even a veterinarian.” About a year ago those were some of my main options, and I had no real reason to think otherwise. Those all sounded like proper jobs; they’d allow me to put a roof over my head and make me feel useful to society. I was considering medical school in particular very seriously.

Then I got pregnant with twins, forcing me to spend many hours with all sorts of doctors: obstetricians, perinatologists, radiologists, neonatologists, anesthesiologists…and still the pregnancy nearly killed all three of us. To make a long story short, I was somewhat disillusioned in the sovereignty of medicine, and I started re-evaluating the med school plan.

I interned at an animal shelter and discovered the combined power of veterinary medicine and police work in the context of animal cruelty. It was new and exciting, though after 6 months, I still felt like that wasn’t it. Saving animals, however admirable, wasn’t what I wanted to do with my life. So there I was: pre-med with no desire to do anything medical.

These days I am very near completion of a yearlong internship that involves being a total lab rat. That’s not it either. I love lab; I’ve learned so much. Nevertheless, I refuse to be confined to a cramped room day after day -just me and beakers covered in tin foil for some reason. I’m still not sure what that is about. But I am certain I can’t do it forever. I need to see the sun, to work outside where life is happening. In my quest for a career with the je ne sais quoi that pre-med, pre-vet and research lack, I have fortuitously come across the following jobs, all of which have tremendous it potential:

Crocodile Wrangler –here is a great example of an adventure-meets-science job. It seems like an excellent use of a master’s degree in biological sciences, provided you are strong, fast on your feet, and young enough to feel invincible.

Light Bender –a light bender takes empty glass tubes, heats them up to around 1650 degrees Celsius, shapes them and fills them with a noble gas of choice. All that to make neon lighting. It’s an extremely dangerous job, but it also sounds very cool, a little unreal even. Open to all majors.

Snake Milker –really not as weird as it sounds. A degree in biology, chemistry, biochemistry, or herpetology is required. As is the will to face death on an hourly basis. Snake milkers collect exceedingly dangerous snake venom, from which antivenom and some medicines can be made. This job is incredibly useful to society, and though snake milkers probably work in labs, I bet that’s the last thing on their minds. Ever.

Other jobs that appeal to me include microbe hunter, space psychologist, volcanologist, cryptozoologist, ice cream taster and fire scientist. We, the science-oriented students of UC Davis, should never feel like we are limited by our undergraduate training: there is a lot to do out there that does not involve MCATs, VCATs or formal laboratory research. Some of the oddest jobs are available to us, and we should totally go for it.