Wander: An Abridged Ph.D. Memoir Essay

by Olatomiwa Bifarin (Bifarin V Substack) Wander is a memoir written by Olatomiwa Bifarin about his Ph.D. experience in the United States. In this 5000-plus-word essay, he tells his story of completing a Ph.D. program in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Georgia.

His tales highlight the surprising benefit of wandering and the counterintuitive – and no less potent – benefit of how being less competitive can improve one’s odds of success.

These lessons apply not only to folks who want to get a Ph.D. but even more so to anyone who engages in any kind of knowledge work.

I was born and bred in a small town in Southwestern Nigeria called Ilé-Ifẹ̀. Primary school, secondary school (high school), and college – everything in that town. I would say that I was born into a middle-class home – only to the extent that that is meaningful. I wasn’t shielded from the interrupted, epileptic power supply, for example. And the constant violent cheers we make – every time electricity is restored by the government-owned power company – remains a prominent childhood memory.

College was also tough enough to the point whereby, on many occasions, I read with candles at night. Rough enough that there wouldn’t be water to take your bath in the dorm. And on many occasions, I would sleep on long wooden chairs in the library, sometimes by choice, most times because the dorm is filled up to the brim with human bodies.

There are many stories to be told about childhood and college, but this isn’t the place for a full gist. Instead, my story will start from the summer of 2014.

In the summer of that year, I worked as a science journalist for Advanced Biofuel USA. I had a keen interest in bioenergy while attending the Catholic University of America for a master’s program in biotechnology. So, I asked for an internship to learn more about the field.

During the internship, I frequented the United States Capitol to cover bioenergy events. While preparing for one of those events, I came across a paper published in PNAS titled ‘Direct conversion of plant biomass to ethanol by engineered Caldicellulosiruptor bescii.’ Even then, I found the microorganism’s name a little intimidating.

“Cal-di-cel-lu-lo-si-rup-tor,” I attempted pronouncing it after downloading the paper. The organism is a bacterium that grows in scorching hot environments – they grow in temperatures as high as 185 degrees Fahrenheit, and as such, it is rightly called a thermophile. This thermophilic feature, amongst others, makes the organism come in handy for bioenergy/biofuel research.

The whole point of the bioenergy ‘business’ is to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels – to make fuels using renewable organic matter, for example like using the grass in your backyard. And the technology is pretty straightforward. Microorganisms degrade the organic matter, and in the process, they produce fuels as by-products. At the time, the technology was getting some solid press attention, as biologists engineer microorganisms to accomplish the feat.

Anyways, that paper would have a sizeable impact on my trajectory over the next year.

That summer, I was planning to start a Ph.D. program the following year. I have shortlisted a few labs, so I also decided to email the paper’s senior author with a mouthful title heading, ‘Prospective Ph.D. student and Caldicellulosiruptor bescii,’ to ask about potentially joining her lab the following fall.

The professor replied that she wasn’t sure yet about accepting new graduate students, and she quickly added, “…there are lots of opportunities for students in our department, and I do hope you will apply.”

You don’t frequently get replies from professors from the outside, talk-less of such auspicious response.