Hira Ahmad | Student

Follow your Passion

I remember coming to DePauw with an incredibly specific plan for how I wanted to spend the next four years. Both of my parents are microbiology professors, and my angsty teenage self wanted to do something different, so I intended to declare a psychology major. 

I was very committed to that until I took an introductory anthropology class called Human Origins during my second semester freshman year. Reading about and studying evolution in that course reinvigorated my love of natural science and the importance of environmental and evolutionary studies in a society facing the repercussions of global climate change. I remember having this feeling that this passion for the natural sciences was not fleeting and that I needed to follow it to see where it led.

In a strange twist of fate, I met with professor Sarah Lee in the Biology Department, and she welcomed me right in and gave me a space in what was before a daunting subject. I declared a biology major that semester before even taking one college biology course -– which is not something I would necessarily recommend to other students. 

Whenever I’m in the thick of studying for a tricky biology or chemistry exam, I think about why I made that decision and what studying science means to me, and it makes all those sleepless nights worth it.

Major: Biology

Involvement: First-Year Experience Program peer mentor; Honor Scholar; Academic Resource Center writing tutor; biology and psychology student researcher; Prindle Institute intern