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From Pharmacist to Writer: My Journey from Science to Creativity
Initially, I believed the world could be precisely packaged into absolutes: black and white, right and wrong, known and unknown. In pharmacy school, with several classes in chemistry, life sciences, and mathematics, precision and analysis ruled. As a pharmacist, I calculated, verified, and made repeatable doses. It was a life of facts, formulas, and certainties, all shaped by years of STEM education.
And yet, somewhere along the way, something within me stirred. I think my fifth-grade teacher knew. I was going to a summer enrichment course after my fifth-grade year. We had choices, and I chose a biology science course. I could have chosen a reading and creative writing course, which Mr. Ellingson, my fifth-grade teacher, recommended and even told my parents to attempt to persuade me in that direction. But I attended the biology course.
A creative side existed that I long ignored — perhaps resisted and repressed — and began to wake up. The shift wasn’t abrupt; it was a quiet transformation, like light seeping into a room through a crack in the blinds.
The Structure of Science and the Awakening of Art
In science, everything is driven by logic. I relied on evidence-based approaches, protocols, and clarity as a pharmacist. Science…
