I’m Georgia’s First Black Male Polymer Chemist…Here’s What I Would Do If I Could Go through My Collegiate Career Again

Hi everyone,

Sean here and in this video I am going to discuss how I became Georgia’s first black male polymer chemist and what I would do differently if I could go through my collegiate journey again. I hope you enjoy.

In my opinion, college is a transformative period of your life because you’re surrounded by literally thousands of people your same age and in a concentrated area, I.e. high population density for geographic region. Further, there are a plethora of resources at your fingertips besides the internet to enhance your experiences and ensure that you come out of the collegiate process a holistically well-rounded individual. Everything is new when you’re in college and the difference of a good collegiate outcome versus a bad one lies in the preparation. Although I’m condensing my best advice into this short blog, it’s important to note that it took me 11 years from my first chemistry course in 10th grade to my graduating college four years after high school to finally getting employed an apprenticeship in 2019 as a polymer research technician. Go Dawgs. Later, after nine months, I realized I wanted to be an entertainer so I ghosted them. My bad. It was very rude and I apologize. Still, I am forever grateful for the opportunity.

I attended Elon University and in hindsight I would say that I wish I knew myself before packing my stuff up and moving to NC from GA. To contextualize, I took college courses in high school because fuck AP right? I mean, listen, there’s this awesome concept called dual enrollment where you go to college for you junior and/or senior year while in high school and the best part is you can still do all your extracurriculars (theatre and tennis for me), damn right I was tryna go to college.

I knew I wanted to be a polymer chemist at this point because as previously mentioned, I play tennis and at a match I was watching on TV the soles were melting off the shoes and I thought if I could ameliorate this problem that I would be very rich ! Yes ! Still, moving to a completely different state, tryna make friends your first year and taking organic chemistry your first year is no easy feat, all the while holding down an intense job. In hindsight, I might have done more research on colleges that were more akin to my major instead of flipping a coin. It turns out that polymer chemistry wasnt even a course Elon offered. Also, major culture shock with such emphasis on Greek life. I would say that being around a bunch of white people alone was also but I’m from Gwinnett and I play tennis which is at the time the third most diverse county in the country. Plus, I played tennis and being black male playing tennis , I grew up idolizing a lot of white males and women (history of tennis), cant forget Arthur Ashe though. Further, Elon was putting their diversity campaign so I figured what the hell? In hindsight, having white teachers helped because man this shit is hard enough to learn on its own let alone having someone with a non American accent teach it to you. Disclaimer. I realize that if I did accomplish this feat, I’d learn how to communicate scientifically verbally with a wide range of people from different backgrounds.

Lesson #2: Watch your course on YouTube before lecture, then read your textbook, go to lecture and take notes in class, review your notes immediately after class, then go to office hours with questions only after attempting all of the questions in the back of the book. Tutors help so if your university offers tutors accept them with open arms. In class, asks questions and don’t be afraid to look stupid; better to look like a fool once than to actually be a fool plus embarassment is a useless emotion.

Lesson #3: Internships/REUs are the best teacher: rack up as many as possible. You’ll learn more on the job than in the classroom and if you do dual enrollment you should have the opportunity to do one after the first year of university because your core is knocked out. I can’t speak for consciences but 5K for 12 weeks of grunt work isn’t bad for someone with no skills. Still, depending on who your research professor is you may get published also which should be the goal for the science major, as many publications as possible so be innovative on the job.

Lesson #4: Maturity is just as important as intelligence. I probably should have retaken general chemistry instead of organic chemistry my freshman year. Things would be different. Going out every weekend was also bad. I’d limit partying to once a week but its a part of culture to party so oh well. But seriously limit partying to once a week. Like my friend says, it’s a matter of your priorities. Weed is cool. Say no to hard drugs. Even still, I’ll make another video on lower risk strategies for substance consumption.

Lesson #5: Pick a major in demand and good for your personality. Google (insert major / job title here) 10 year job market projections and it’ll tell you the likliehood of you getting employed. The average job market growth for the next 10 years is around 13% and data science is around 40% whereby chemistry is 3%. I wish I knew that before choosing this major, still the point with chemistry is to invent so keep that in mind. Even still, ask yourself, can I be the best in the world as this discipline? Do an empirical analysis and a Myers Briggs assessment on your personality to see what career is best for your personality couldn’t hurt either. I’m an ENFP and that’s the total opposite to a chemistry major. Same with data science. So, in my case I would have to find a balance between what the market desires and how to accomodate it to my personality.

Hope you enjoyed these tips. Follow me on all socials @SeanieCarp