Why the Sciences Need Art
By Azra
When it came to school, my parents always emphasized two things: science and good grades. Good grades in everything, but especially math and science. A “B” in Science was much more serious than a “B” in Language Arts. As such, I never didn’t truly understand the merits of writing until the end of high school. However, better late than never, because I am proud to identify as a writer and hope to one day have a career that combines science and writing as the equal entities that they are. Rather than arguing why every scientist should think writing is important, I am going to share my story with writing and what role it has had in my university career as a science student.
Problem Solving
I am analytical and a problem solver. I think in a fast and methodical way. This is perfect for a challenging math problem or understanding a science concept. These attributes are what’s drawn me to become a pharmacist.
But these are also qualities that every writer needs. In fact, I have never felt more challenged or stimulated than when I write. You can have all these ideas floating around, but when it comes to writing, you have to figure out how you want to organize them, what message you want to send, and how to engage your audience. Completing a writing piece is a problem I need to solve. Others can provide feedback, but they cannot finish or complete your writing piece. It’s such an individual process. Through writing, I’ve improved my analytical and problem-solving skills because I get to engage my mind in a different, but equally challenging way.
Expression
In my faculty, it is easy to feel like you are just like everyone else; we are all taking the same courses and we are all going to become pharmacists. I actually felt lost when I started pharmacy because my whole identity had been based around school and I struggled to feel like an individual with this group of people I was so similar to. I don’t have any creative talents, the best I can do is play piano. So that’s how I really discovered writing.
Originally, I just wrote to share funny stories with my friends. But soon, writing became a form of expression for me and a part of my identity. My thoughts make way more sense when I’ve written them down. If I write something, you can hear my voice, and you know I wrote it. I get offered opportunities because I like to write. I feel confident when I write and writing allows me to express my individuality beyond my field of study.
Opportunities
I have five jobs. Two of them are strictly writing, two of them are strictly pharmacy, and one of them is a mix of both. You can see that by having a strong interest in both writing and science, I have lot more opportunities and diversified job experience. I’d say that’s going to be useful in the future! I’d also just like to add in a plug here — last year I entered a writing contest in my faculty and won the cash prize because not many people in my faculty like to write and the competition was sparse. And yeah, that also makes my resume look cooler.
Research Skills
At some point during my six years of university, I came to the conclusion that I would not feel like I was working to my full potential unless my career combined writing and science. I still have no idea how or of that is going to happen, but I did ask a professor to be a research supervisor so that I could gain some academic writing experience. He listened to my goals and created a research project centered around writing.
I’ve learned so much as a scientist and as a writer from this project. One of the most important aspects is that research has two main parts: compiling data, be it through experiments or through a literature search and using the scientific method to conduct your study. The next part involves creating and writing a cohesive research report. You can’t have one part without the other. So, you could say, that writing and science are both equally important.
Writing Matters… No Matter What
At the end of the day, even if you are in a science profession, you are never going to truly escape writing. While writing assignments are sparser in my program, they still exist. Developing your writing skills can help make your resume and cover letter stand out. I can’t tell you the number of times my sister has told me that applications for medical student residencies are disregarded due to a poorly written application. Messages to the public and to colleagues are often communicated through writing and if your writing is riddled with grammatical errors or is hard to follow it is going to be hard to understand.
To put it bluntly, writing is an important skill that allows for many opportunities no matter what field of study you are in!
