Personal Narrative: Harvey Mudd Chemistry

I waited patiently by the bench in what all Harvey Mudd chemistry majors call the "Super Lab," staring for what seemed to be hours at a small flask bubbling with something that looked like a cross between Pepto-Bismol and whipped cream. I was waiting for the color to turn just the right shade of blue before I could go home for a late dinner, but it was obvious that this solution was as far from blue as baseball is from rugby. I realized then that "Super Lab" was not so Super, and neither was a career as a chemist.
Every summer since high school, I worked at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory as a research assistant. One of my major projects involved working on a team to develop probes for the detection radioactive substances. When I turned in my