This is my story. This is why I stopped doing research despite my degree.

Hello Steemians! The name is Job, and I hail from that small country called the Philippines. I am currently 24 and have a degree in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology from the University of the Philippines. I graduated last 2014, so it's been four years since I last stepped foot in a classroom.

I now work as a web content writer and I produce articles for a wide range of websites, from online business to real estate. The company I work for has clients in a variety of areas, thus I'm writing on many different topics.

You might be wondering why my work is not related to molecular biology research. That's a great question and one that I would gladly talk about. Here's my story. Right after I graduated in April of 2014, I was immediately offered a job by the uni. My thesis adviser came up to me and asked if I would be interested in taking up a one-year project as a research assistant, to which I obliged. I thought working in research would be the best application of the skills I have learned. It was also my childhood dream to be one of the guys in white coats doing experiments in a lab, so this was fulfilling that dream.

The work was nice; science always sparks my curiosity. At first, I deeply enjoyed doing research, discovering new things and all. The first six months went pretty much well, and most of the time I did love what I was doing, especially when I was attempting to mutate bacteria through ultraviolet radiation. Then came the disappointments and the unmet expectations.

My goal in that research project was to discover a novel antibiotic from different species of extremophile bacteria. Extremophiles are those that can survive harsh environments like hot springs, undersea volcanoes, and deepwater trenches. Some can even survive the cosmic radiation of space. Extremophiles have not been very much explored in terms of antibiotic production; thus this research was done to see if it's possible to get new kinds of antibiotics from extremophiles.

One of the experiments I did was flooding plates of those bacteria with ultraviolet radiation. The idea behind that is bacteria can produce antibiotics as a response to stressful conditions. Here, the stressor used was UV radiation. I also tried other different stress conditions, but none of them produced the results I had expected. No antibiotics, no nothing. Just a random mish-mash of data I can't make sense of.

Of course, good experimentation demands constant repetition. So I kept on doing them, tweaking a few factors here and there. Still, no dice. No new antibiotic, no nothing. Repeating and doing stuff all over again to no avail was what frustrated me. Though I was aware that setbacks like these were part of any good piece of research, I still felt very frustrated. I felt my creative power being drained every single day. I lost the motivation to keep experimenting, knowing it might turn out another disappointment anyway.

Then came the end of the project year. I was supposed to write a formal report detailing what had been done. That was the last task I had to complete. Even then, it took me far too long to finish the report. At that time I was just feeling so down in the dumps that I refused to do my job anymore. I had very little will to finish the report. I knew I had to, but I just did not want to. I could not explain it, but it could have well been my first ever depressive episode. I'm not clinically diagnosed with depression, though; it might have just been the combination of circumstances that triggered a flurry of negative emotions within me.

After more than a month of grinding through, I finally got that report done and dusted. That officially marked the end of my responsibilities as a researcher (for that particular project anyway). But all of the stress and depression it brought taught me one thing - research is not for me. What I thought to be a childhood dream was, in reality, a nightmare. For that, I decided to not find another research project anymore after I was done with the first one. Enough was enough. I did not want to resign my life to experiencing things like that over and over again.

The change happened when I was looking for another job that would suit me. I applied at a bioenterprise startup whose CEO gave a career talk one day in my uni when I was still a student. However, I never received a response from them after I sent them my resume. I was doing nothing and wanted do be productive with my life, so I turned to a friend who owns a small web design business. She was looking for a writer, and the opportunity came at exactly the right moment for me. I took the job in a heartbeat. That was in 2015, and that's what started off my writing career.

I could never have been happier. Although writing for websites that weren't focused on science was not what I had in mind, I sort of fell in love with the job the more I did it. I work from home, which means there is no morning and afternoon commute to endure. I can wake up later than everyone else with no negative consequences. I can work at my own schedule as long as I fulfill my deadlines. The best part is I get to discover many different things as well, even outside of a science lab. The things I have to research for unfamiliar topics opens my eyes to the different industries around the world.

It's not as if writing was just something out of the blue that I settled with. I have been passionate for writing even as a young high-school kid. I used to write for the school paper, and I even made it as a managing editor. Almost every week, I was assigned to write about a topic I was very interested in, and I absolutely loved the work. Writing reflection papers for my economics subject is also something I remember that I equally loved doing. My economics teacher had high regard for the writings I submitted to her.

For that reason, I decided to jump into Steemit. Not only am I writing here for fun and to share my knowledge with others, but I also have the potential to earn something out of it! If I could turn a passion into something that makes money, then why not, right? So look out for more science and technology content from me.

Looking forward to writing more content and having meaningful discussions with the community!

Sincerely,
Job E.