If you've ever watched the TV show, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, cool girl Heather Davis's classic line "I'm a student" is an iconic excuse for everything she does. If you haven't watched the show, you'll nevertheless understand the sentiment immediately. Get caught smoking weed, "But, I'm a student," time to make scary life-altering decisions, "No thanks, I'm a student."

While Heather uses her student identity as a crutch through much of the show so far, she eventually graduates and has to face the real world with no concept of what she wants to do for a job. This is not me. I'm a planner. I've known that I am passionate about science since I was a child, and even though my path has changed over the years, there's one thing that hasn't. I plan on remaining a student forever, even after I've left school for good.

As a student in graduate school, I'm stuck in this weird transition stage that many people experience in their twenties. Between having more adult responsibilities outside of college (paying bills, rent, general adulting) and still having to report to a teacher who has grading power over you, it's difficult to find the balance. You're starting to figure out who you are in the world, what you really want to do with the rest of your life and who you want to spend it with, but at the same time you still need your advisors permission before continuing with an experiment.

I've technically been a student since I was 5 years old, and I will be for at least another 4 years. I'm okay with that. At the center of any career I have will be a passion for learning new things. Whether it's learning about new research in my own field, discussions with my peers, new training workshops, or professional development skills, I'll still be a student in some capacity. Even people who choose to jump right into a career after high school or college have to continuously learn on the job. Becoming an "expert" in a certain field doesn't mean attaining a point in your career where you stop learning, it means you've certainly learned a lot and now there's so much more to know, so keep learning!

I will still be a student for a while longer as I embark on a Ph.D. Yes, I'll have deadlines and assignments to do as a traditional student, but I'll also be a teacher, a researcher, a content creator. I'll be developing my confidence in a new field, preparing for the intricacies of project and staff management, and still learning all the time.

Being a student is part of my identity. I will never stop learning. As a professional, I'll never stop learning career development tools and ways to benefit myself, the people I work with, and my target audiences. In the process of being a life-long student, I'm finding myself too.