decisions

It’s time to make the second most important decision in my life. The first one was to choose between getting a job or pursuing a higher degree, which was followed by which grad school to go to after I decided to pursue a higher education. It was a dilemma that haunted me for two whole months as I had to weigh the consequences that I would be apart from home for another 5 years and having to go through a long-distance relationship with my boyfriend at that time. Then I had to think about which school would be better for me and where do I actually want to be for the next 5 years. The choices were narrowed down to University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Michigan State University. They are both really good school and have respected ranking for their Microbiology program. After two months of pondering and drinking advice from parents, professors and friends, I end up where I am now – Michigan State University. No regrets so far except for a moment during the breakup with my boyfriend that I could have gone to Singapore or Malaysia instead of here but after being here for almost 9 months, I realize that I’ve learned so much more in terms of research and being independent there’s nothing to regret and given a second chance, I would still come here. There’s always the question that I ask myself when I’m out in the freezing cold “Why in the world do I choose to come back to white, icy, cold, dull Michigan instead of going to warm, sunny, colorful, radiant, full of hot guys Florida or California?” But that’s only when I’m sick of the cold weather here, which I say that all the time since I’m not a big fan of the cold.

Today, or to be exact, tomorrow at 1.30pm would be the second time I have to finalize a major decision. What do I want to do for my PhD thesis? I am down to two choices right now –

a) Microbial Ecology with Dr. Schmidt. To look at the different growth characteristics of bacteria with multiple 16S rRNA operon and few 16S rRNA operon and how the ratio of these strains changes in the bacterial population of environmental samples, particularly aquatic environment. Also on why the population changes and the influence of nutrient flux. In long term, this might be useful for me to get into an environmental research group, and since Malaysia is surrounded by aquatic environment, there is a possibility to do sampling there but will there be any groups studying stuff like this in Malaysia? In my mind, I can think of people back home giving me the ‘why-should-I-care-about-this’ look when talking about microbial ecology. So I don’t think I can earn a lot of money with experience in this line in the future.

b) Microbial Pathogenesis with Dr. Young. To look at the effect of bile on Helicobacter hepaticus, the putative etiological agent of inflammatory bowel disease and possibly hepatic cancer. From there, to determine the genes involve and mechanism H. hepaticus uses to resist killing by bile. It will involve lots of in vitro experiments initially but will eventually have to go to in vivo using mouse model. This would be a very useful work especially as a contribution to the medical world but if I am determined to save the world, I would have applied for an MD-PhD program instead of a PhD program in Microbiology. Furthermore, I would have to kill more mice!! Which leads to me creating more bad karma and all the nightmares to be anticipated. It has been fun working on the in vitro side of the project so far and there are so much more to be studied and so many ways to explore but I just don’t like the thought of killing more mice at all.

So do I do something that I really enjoy and can be passionate about it but might face difficulty of getting a job when I go back home or do I do something that I like and will be very helpful for future job application but will have to go through a few periods of being a murderer?

I have an appointment with Dr. Schmidt tomorrow and my thoughts right now – if we can come up with a research proposal that interest both of us and there are sufficient funding, I am going for it. Hopefully the thoughts stay till tomorrow’s appointment.

Sigh, it’s times like this when I wish I am back to being the kid when the only time decision is required is choosing between Twisties, Mamee or Cheezels.