Science revolves around the fervor for ideas and the people who chase those passions. Hope Jahren captures the passion for science in her book – Lab Girl, an engrossing narrative of her endearment of science and the adventures she encounters in her pursuit of hypotheses and hunches. In her case, the passion she has for plants helps the reader to appreciate botany. Moreover, she makes use of plant descriptions as a metaphor for her own life. The essay will analyze an example of such an application as well as the use of her plant descriptions to depict the life of the writer especially the transfer experience.
Roots
The root grows down before the shoot grows up, and so there is no possibility for green tissue to make new food for several days or even weeks. Rooting exhausts the very last reserves of the seed. The gamble is everything and losing means death. The odds are more than a million to one against success. But when it wins, it wins big. If a root finds what it needs, it bulks into a taproot – an anchor that can swell and split bedrock, and move gallons of water daily for years" (Jahren, 2016, p.52).
In the above excerpt, Jahren is describing her own life experiences in trying to find root in the life of science and survive making meaningful contributions. According to her, her experience in the field of science is bot exciting and terrible. Jahren quickly moves from postgraduate research to a position of being in charge of her own lab in Atlanta, Georgia. Her step is like that of a lucky root that extends out and anchors with the hope of finding water. In the same case, Jahren anchors in the field of science and starts her own lab in the hope that she will find chemicals, equipment, and funds to keep up her research in plants. However, she is not lucky enough because she realizes that research is no easy path of coming up with a hypothesis, testing the hypothesis, and drawing a conclusion. She struggles daily to make it as a scientist and because this is where her passion is she has no choice but to stay. She does not have the luxury of switching careers and she compares her predicament with that of a plant whose roots anchored in a dangerous, cold, and dry place. Once anchored the plant cannot relocate it has to remain there in the hope that the current condition will change which is the same thing she does.
Jahren faces accidents, failures, jealousy, friendship, exhaustion, and discrimination in her quest to make it as a scientist. At some juncture in her life, she comes across a former mentor who she discovered is near retirement and when she discovers that is cleaning out his lab, her mind begins making calculations on her she can acquire the equipment to equip her cash-strapped laboratory. Setting up her laboratory exhausted her finances just like the root exhausted its reserves with anchoring and therefore all she has to hope for is a breakthrough just as the roots faithfully and patiently wait for water. The chances of making it as a root are minimal and she compares those chances with chances of a woman making it in the field of science. At some point, she even begins arguing that her struggles are linked to the fact that she is a woman struggling to make it in a male-dominated field.
However, despite the minimal chances, she receives a breakthrough. She survives a depression episode, wins ample support and financial assistance to aid her to relocate to John Hopkins University and later moves to Hawaii. Just like the plant, she made it as she is ready to engage in as much research as she can for years. She has now developed a taproot, an anchor that will keep her in place for years to come and there are no more chances of death because the leaves are already out of the ground.
Seeds and transfer experience
"A seed knows how to wait. Most seeds wait for least a year before starting to grow; a cherry seed can wait for a hundred years with no problem. What exactly each seed is waiting for is known only to that seed. Some unique trigger- a combination of temperature-moisture-light and many other things is required to convince a seed to jump off the deep and take its chance – to take its one and only chance to grow. A seed is alive while it waits. Every acorn on the ground is just as alive as the three-hundred-year-old tree that towers over it. Neither the seed nor the old oak is growing; they are both just waiting. Their waiting differs, however, in the seed is waiting to flourish while the tree is only waiting to die" (Jahren 2016, p.30).
My last fall quarter at Chaffey College I was edgy and inspired. I was patiently waiting like a seed for my trigger to sprout. Sprout out from Chaffey College and to UCSB where my dreams of becoming a professional accountant would be actualized. I had been waiting alive but not really living. My parents had promised that once they got the financial breakthrough, then I would relocate to UCSB. So I crossed my fingers and as days dragged on in class, I would hope against hope that my trigger would come soon. I could not share my anxiety with my colleagues just in case my desire would not get fulfilled. I am a reserved person, I do not like being made fun off and so I kept my anxiety to myself and just like a seed waiting for years, I waited for what felt like years.
I remember, one day after classes, my parents had not called for a long time and I started imagining that maybe they had given up on the plans to transfer me to the place where I was guaranteed of making my dreams come true. I did not go out for dinner and although my friends came to pick me, I declined the kind gesture. I was waiting, waiting for a call with good news, anything, a call to tell me that there was still hopes and that I could still hold on but nothing came.
In the night, when the bats had come out of their hiding dens and the twilight was so murky that it was almost stifling, I stowed awake in bed. I listened to the frogs croaking and the determined crickets stridulating outside. When I got exhausted of hearing to the tempo they created, I started imagining what my life would be like if only I got the trigger I was waiting for. I imagined how good I would be applying my calculus as an Econ & Acctg major at UCSB and I would be lying if I said that the thoughts did no send tingles of joy in my heart. In my happy thoughts, I drifted to sleep hoping against hope that even my seed would get the trigger it was patiently hoping for.
The semester came to an end at Chaffey and still my parents did not say anything and my better judgment advised me against asking. I would not have loved to push them and I thought to wait for a little more would not hurt me. After all, “a cactus does not reside in the desert because of the love it has for the desert, it lives there because the desert has not yet killed it” (Jahren 2016, p.142). Hence, since they had not told me that my transfer was canceled, I had hope, not the same as that of a tree waiting to die but the hope of a seed waiting to flourish. I knew the moment I was informed the money was there, I would be ready. I would be ready to join UCSB and work hard until I became a professional accountant. My hard work would only stop when I received the recognition of a professional accountant.
Therefore, to keep my mind busy, I started looking for Economics books. I would read through the book, prepare notes so that when I returned the book to the national library, I would still have notes to go through and assist me to gain an understanding of what I wanted to pursue in UCSB. My industriousness did not stop there, I kept looking for CPA books and past examinations and I would go through them to help me gain an understanding of what was expected of me when I officially commenced my studies. I was making a bold move that the first root that extends to anchor by anchoring in an area I was not sure whether the ground would be fertile enough for me to sprout. I had hope. The seed had been cast, there was no turning back now all I would do is hope that my passion for knowledge in Economics and accounts would mature into a very fruitful tree.
I did not want my parent to do much, I just wanted to be given a chance, a chance to sprout and make something of myself and that day finally came. At the end of the break, my parents called me to the dining table with serious faces and all the hope I had strongly held on for months starting drifting away, slowly but surely. I kept telling myself that it was ok and even when they broke the news to me, I would accept the outcome and go back to Chaffey without any hard feelings. However, somewhere deep down in my heart, I knew my heart was breaking into a million pieces and no matter how hard I tried I would never be able to completely cut the roots I had anchored in the field of economics.
When I was well settled, they told me to get ready I am transferring to UCSB and I could not help myself but cry. Tears of joy and hope freely streamed down my cheeks and a new hope to flourish grew inside. I had been given a chance and I was not going to take advantage of it. After all, "each beginning is the end of waiting. We are each given exactly one chance to be. Each of us is both inevitable and impossible. Every replete tree was first a seed that waited” (Jahren 2016, p.32). Today, my patience is the reason why I am in UCSB, a university miles away from my home country China but nothing gives me joy than the thought that I made it.
The way Lanaan’s 2001 paper aligns with my experience
A student in a community college who moves to a four-year institution encounters new environmental, academic, and psychological difficulties. The academics related difficulties student transfers face revolve around the fact that they have challenges adjusting to the intense standards of learning and often encounter many other challenges once they enroll in the four-year institutions. The challenge has been associated with the location, size, students' competition, and academic rigor. The transfer shock concept has been utilized to attribute the interims dip that relocation students' encounter in academic performance in the initial and subsequent semester after the transfer (Laanan 2001, p.5).
I remember the first few weeks after I transferred to UCSB. I was weary and inspired at the same time. I wanted to make it in this new environment and I had been going through relevant books in preparation for the new chapter of my life. However, I still got the transfer shock. The academic rigor was too much and the competition in class was too much to bear. The first few weeks I had not made friends and so I would make sure that any time I was not attending lectures, I was busy reading on my own in the library. I was worried I would rag behind and fail in the final semester exams and so I made the extra effort. I was always in books and I hardly had time to specialize. I would feel weary all the time because I hardly had time to relax or even socialize. I came to UCSB with a mission and one of my goals to be through with my CPA in three years and so I had to put extra effort. The transfer shock came to an end when I made a friend who was a year ahead of me. He taught me to adjust to the new environment and plan well for my time. I took time to learn the tactics but I was determined and he did not get tired of reminding me. Today, as the semester comes to an end nothing brings me more joy than being in a four-year institution and I have completely adjusted to the new environment.
References
Jahren, H. (2016). Lab Girl. New York: Knopf.
Laanan, F. S. (2001). Transfer Students: Trends and Issues. New Directions for Community Colleges. Carlifornia: Eric Publications.
