Cheryl Hayashi: "Spiders, Silks, and Me"

On Tuesday February 5, I attended the lecture by Cheryl Hayashi, describing her experience from high school graduation to finding her career passion to her present day research. At first, studying spider silk seemed like an obscure profession, but after her explanation of her road to this career, I not only found it fascinating, but was also inspired to finding my own passion.
She began her presentation by telling of her path from high school to finding her career; this section perhaps had the most impact on me, as I’m currently pondering what I want to do with my life and what classes to take next year. The fact that she found her life’s passion from a requisite class and a small part time job really says that anything is possible. It also encourages you to take every opportunity presented to you, for you never know what may turn out to be your life.
Aside from the inspiration, I also learned a lot about spider silk that I never knew before. I had known that silk was comparatively much stronger than many things we consider very strong, but I didn’t know just how strong that was until I saw the comparison. I was also surprised to learn of the many different types of silk that one spider can produce. And a hundred and fifty yards of silk from one spider! Wow. I hadn’t known there was so much to just spider silk alone; and as she said, one answer brings up ten more questions, like: I wonder what else there is to study that contains more than meets the eye? Perhaps one of those could be my passion. I’ll just have to wait and see.