When I Really Knew I Could Be a Scientist

July 5th, 2010

This is a true story.   It’s kind of funny, kind of stupid, but it’s true and that’s the important thing.

I was a smart kid growing up, usually at the top of my class, always fiddling with one project or another.   I was into the stars, dinosaurs, chemistry, science fiction, making movies, writing stories, chess, D&D.   You know, the fun nerd stuff.   Most of what I was about usually came back around to science in one form or another.

There were some feelings of insecurity, however, and ignorance about some fundamental things concerning a career in science.   Not that I would have admitted it then.   Probably not, anyway.   I knew to be a scientist you had to go to grad school and get a PhD.   I thought grad school was like law school or medical school and would require big student loans, but I also knew that science didn’t pay as well as law or medicine, so I didn’t really understand why people would put themselves through that.   I figured there was something special about them, that they were beyond me, more dedicated or more talented somehow.

I went to Rice University and majored in electrical engineering.   Engineering made sense.   Four years of tuition, high-paying good job on the other end, and engineers worked with scientists on big projects like spacecraft that would scratch my science itch.   Still, I liked astronomy so much that I kept taking courses in the field and wound up with a double major, adding space physics (the closest Rice had to an astronomy major).

My sophomore year I took the introductory astronomy courses, a two-class sequence, for major students.   I got the highest score on the first exam, 100%, and the professor scribbled “Come see me sometime” on the exam.   I felt sort of inadequate, not even being a major just yet.   That would change soon, and I owed it to my professor.   All the grad students in the department called him “Reggie” but even years from now he is imprinted on me as “Dr. Dufour.”   He was a good professor and a good scientist.   He was also a short guy, a bit overweight, with a hearing aid and a touch of a cajun accent.   I thought of him as our own regional version of Jack Horkheimer, whose PBS segments about astronomy always ended with “keep looking up.”

Later that year my partner and I were trying to get some data for an astronomy lab.   We wanted to use a bigger telescope (16 inch diameter) outside of town that we had access to, as the 6 inch celestrons from downtown Houston weren’t the best choice.   We went out one weekend, an hour and a half drive to Huntsville, TX, and had all sorts of problems.   The telescope was not used often and was cranky, and just didn’t work well.   We couldn’t get any data for our project.   Dr. Dufour promised to go out with us the following weekend and guaranteed data for us.   We lit up like minature supernovas at that!

We all went out and Dr. Dufour struggled with the telescope as much as we had.   And then some.   We were students, too afraid to push things too hard.   Not so for a professor to help his dedicated students…but his best efforts wound up with a frozen scope stuck in an odd position and his screwdriver sliding to the bottom of a deep shaft.

He cussed up the biggest storm of foul words that I’d ever heard a professional utter in my whole life.

My partner and I were a little shocked.

We never did get the scope working for us, and settled for the smaller telescopes and skies of Houston to finish the project, but that night made a big impact on me.

My professor, who I looked up to so much, was human like me.   I could be a scientist, too, and perhaps someday a professor as well.   It was a really important insight for me to have at that stage, and I will always be grateful for his effort, enthusiasm, and honesty.   That night, and several more incidents during my time in college made me realize that Dr. Dufour was also a great person and caring professor that I was lucky to have.   He is still an inspiration to me working with my students and thinking back reminds me of the responsibility I have as I exert influences on others today that may be deeper than I recognize.

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