“I hate to be sappy, but I need to say this: The strangest thing about graduating with a degree in neuroscience is that it's technically a Bachelor of Arts. That's not to say that there's no art in neuroscience (in fact, neuroaesthetics is a fascinating perspective), and it's not that hard to make a cell pretty with the help of things like fluorescent proteins.I suppose the strangest thing is that I've achieved another major milestone in life. Or at least, one of the major advertised milestones. I promise I won't wax sympathetic about the importance of graduation, but all things considered, the most significant aspect it marks is departure from a sort of ritual in education.Today I celebrate by noting passage into...yet more school. As the summer months drone on, I'm counting the days until school starts afresh. Another four years in a cycle of life that coincides periodically with the Olympics (2000, 2004, 2008) and presidential terms (2000, 2004, 2008).The scariest aspect of starting at OHSU this fall (actually, in August), is that I'm devoting a serious part of my life to a long commitment. It's longer than college, and will probably permanently define an aspect of my life. I'll have probably around $140,000 of debt to handle, 7-11 years of training to experience, and a tremendously inefficient but powerful medical system to navigate.All of this is exacerbated (I'm definitely not mature enough for this word) by the fact that the kind of medicine I want to practice requires flexibility. I've certainly had plenty of luck with my stroke research, but can someone really define themselves by something so specific as research? I mean no disrespect to biochemists, but what if my short life was spent piecing together the intricacies of channel subunits in the TRPM8 receptor? How can you maintain your humanity? I want to work with people, not proteins. They're a bit more entertaining, although you'll never have to clean up after a sloppy protein (with the possible exception of RNAses, those messy punks).Damn, I can't believe I just made that joke. This is the problem I'm trying to avoid.”