The chem lab fire that made me walk out for good

I was two years into a biochem degree at Ohio State when I set my lab bench on fire by mixing the wrong solvents. It was a small fire, but the professor screamed at me in front of the whole class and I just stood there with my hands shaking at 9AM. I packed my bag right then, skipped the next three lectures, and drove back to my apartment in Columbus without telling anyone. My dad called that night and I told him I was done, and he was quiet for like ten seconds before saying he never liked that school anyway. I ended up working at a brewery doing quality checks, which uses the same attention to detail but with way less pressure. It's weird looking back now, ten years later, because that one mistake probably saved me from a career I hated. Has anyone else had a single classroom disaster that just flipped a switch for you?

1 comments

1 Comment

richardh441d ago

Hold on, tell me more about that dad moment. You said he was quiet for ten seconds, and that silence sounds like it did more work than any pep talk could. Do you think you would have actually stuck it out if he had told you to go back and finish, or was your mind already made up before you even picked up the phone? Because I feel like that pause was him doing the math on your personality and realizing you weren't bluffing.