Serendipity

I remember at the beginning of this year, someone asked me: “What is your favorite movie?” I sat there and honestly couldn’t name anything. I couldn’t even respond with the last movie I’d seen because it had been so long. These seemingly mundane questions kept popping up in conversations: “What’s your favorite book?” “What’s your favorite song?”, “What’s your favorite color?” I didn’t even know how to answer anymore. I tried to brush off this observation because who has time to really focus on such “frivolous” stuff while writing college apps, trying to keep up with classes, and extracurriculars? Yet, it didn’t sit well with me that I couldn’t answer basic questions about myself. When you have to sit and think about what your favorite color is or what your favorite food is there’s something wrong. It’s almost like not being able to say your own name. It’s like being a robot and just going through motions without truly living. The robot I had become was a res...

“Mallika, which pre-med programs are you applying to?” asked my aunt at our Thanksgiving dinner. “None,” I responded with a smile. As an Asian-American girl, who spent last summer as a research assistant, has devoted much of her past five years for pediatric cancer advocacy, and has always been interested in biogenetics, everyone assumes that I want to pursue medicine. Before high school, I always thought I’d study biology or biochemistry, but over the years, I’ve found myself serendipitously drawn to the world of public policy and politics and their various intersections with the sciences. Every day that I worked in the laboratory trying to determine the presence of neoplasia in biopsied tissue, my mind pondered how to share the benefits of such research with patients. Due to FDA mandates and the necessity of clinical trials, it would likely be years before the work would actually benefit patients. As I collected data from spectroscopic images, I wondered how human testing laws woul...

Prompt: How often do you leave your comfort zone? “If all of your friends jumped off a cliff, would you jump off too?” When I was younger, and my parents would use this phrase in a lecture, I’d always say no, scared to challenge them. Now, I say perhaps. Maybe I’ll realize that I value the stable ground a lot more than the exhilarating seconds of free-fall. Maybe not. I won’t know until I try. The phrase used by parents to keep their kids from following the reckless activities of their peers sends a powerful message. It tells kids that “jumping off cliffs” is rash, pointless, and simply, dumb. What if I did jump, though? Not off the cliff built on peer pressure but one of risk, challenging me to reach new heights. I want to jump off mountains I have built up over the years, stones stacked on stones of fear and nervousness. Where do I find these cliffs? They are in places I least want to go. Places like a podium, where I was too afraid to share my ideas and the judgement that ma...