Sarah Reisman '01
In July, I will begin teaching organic chemistry as an assistant professor at the California Institute of Technology. But when I started at Connecticut College, I was not sure what I wanted to study. I decided to take courses that were advised for pre-med students. During my sophomore year, I enrolled in organic chemistry, taught by Timo Ovaska, the Hans and Ella McCollum '21 Vahlteich Professor of Chemistry.
I went on to pursue an independent research project in Professor Ovaska's laboratory, and it was then that I really began to think about going to graduate school for organic chemistry. My time in his lab definitely laid the foundation for the type of research I chose to pursue at Yale University, where I earned my Ph.D. in chemistry, and at Harvard University, where I worked as a postdoctoral fellow. My research experience at Connecticut College gave me a realistic sense of what graduate school would require: creativity, independent thinking, self-motivation and perseverance to keep on going even when things get tough.
Now that I am about to become a professor, I will undertake a challenge very different from those I faced in the laboratory: learning how to effectively mentor graduate and undergraduate students. Like Connecticut College, Caltech is a very small school - only about 800 undergraduates and 1000 graduate students. I think in many respects, having been a student at a small liberal arts college I am better prepared for teaching at an institution where undergraduate education is as important as graduate education and research.