I Study Mosquitoes. Still Get Bitten
Five years into my entomology PhD and I'm still the one getting eaten alive at lab BBQs. I can recite the CO2 gradients, the lactic acid secretions, the blood type preferences—Type O, twice as likely, Journal of Medical Entomology, 2019. I know why mosquitoes find me.
But knowing doesn't stop the bites.
Last week my advisor asked why I seemed 'disengaged' during our weekly meeting. How do you explain that you've spent three years pipetting saliva samples and measuring metabolic rates, only to realize your research won't save anyone from a single bite? That you understand the secondary cues—body heat, dark clothing, beer consumption—but you're still standing in the field at dusk, covered in welts, wondering if any of this matters.
The data is clean. The conclusions are solid. But I'm starting to think I chose mosquitoes because they're the only thing in science that makes less sense than staying here.
#Science #GradSchoolLife #ScienceBurnout
