Artist or Academic?

When considering identity, one might think of themselves as athlete, artist, female, or student. However, one's true identity is really a fusion of multiple identities. For one can be both sister and doctor, lover and fighter, healer and protector. At times one may find that that one of your identities is in conflict with another. Throughout my pre- University of Michigan years I felt defined by my abilities to express what I saw in the world through artistic means. If there were majors in High School, the fine arts probably would have been mine. I felt my artistic abilities shaped me and would always be who I was. However, at the same time, I also excelled in my none art classes and considered myself a good student. Often times in high school people are stereotyped into very specific groups, and I found myself in two. Artist and academic. I never put much thought into the matter, for I always believed that no one had a single identity, and I never came across a conflict of interest. That is until I entered the University of Michigan.

Arriving in Ann Arbor, 600 miles from my New York home, I felt everything would be the same as it always was in the past, and I could continue to excel in multiple areas. I do not think that this idea was necessarily naive, but perhaps it was warranted that this should not be the case. I entered college with the notion that I might consider the pre-medical path but also considered art history. First semester I tried my hand at balancing both by taking general chemistry with labs in addition to an Italian renaissance art history class. My head was swimming with images of Agony in the Garden by Bellini, the Birth of Venus by Botticelli, and the doors of the Duomo in Florence by Ghiberti. At the same time NaCl was an ionic compound with a high boiling point and a crystal lattice structure and diethyl ether would dissolve in the organic layer of an extraction because "like dissolves like." I knew this could not last long. When second semester rolled around and my adviser told me all the the necessary pre-requisite classes that were needed in order to just be considered at a medical school for admissions, my mouth dropped. That was the end. It was almost as my liver turned toward my kidney and kicked it out. There was no alternative, if I wanted to pursue a career in medicine I would have to sacrifice an identity, I had to kill a part of me. This was more than just a conflict of identities.

I made the sacrifice. Well at least I thought I did. I filled my schedule with science classes and extracurricular activities that were aimed at impressing a medical school admissions committee. When I traveled to the Dominican Republic with a team of students with the hope of providing medical relief to as many as possible, I could not help but take photographs in my mind and think of how great I could develop them in the dark room, or how I could portray the familial love but destitution of material well-being. But, I was there for a medical purpose and there was no time for much else, so I quickly re-focused. In some ways I feel the artist is still a part of my identity but the overwhelming science information I have acquired over the past 3 years is clouding any remnant of my creative expression.

This must seem familiar to you. Is there a time in your life where two of your defining identities conflicted, where you might have even had to choose one over the other. It is possible that the way in which you interpret my conflict is actually based on your own identities, experiences, and what you sympathize with. This is what I choose to question. How is it that you are receiving my conflict of identity?