Hope Jahren and Her Mother

Hunter Garrett
Post #7

        Hope Jahren resembles her mother a lot considering how they both had very similar similar experiences and goals for their college education.  Hope's mother excelled in school despite being poor which got her an honorable mention in the Westinghouse Science Talent Search.  This earned her a one-year junior membership to the Minnesota Academy of Science.  Hope's mother used this scholarship to pursue chemistry at the University of Minnesota, but she had to work as a babysitter to help pay off her tuition as the scholarship was not enough to pay it off in its entirety.  However, she realized that she could not attend the long afternoon laboratory sections and still put in enough babysitting hours to pay her tuition.  This, along with the fact that the university experience in 1951 was designed for wealthy men with job options, ultimately resulted in her dropping out of college.  Hope's mother simply decided to raise a family instead.  While she did re-enroll in the University of Minnesota again; her options were limited to correspondence courses, so she decided to study English literature instead.
        Hope was in a situation that was very similar to her mother's when she started her college education.  She earned a scholarship to the University of Minnesota, but it did not cover her entire tuition.  She had to work in a multitude of jobs to help offset her tuition expenses just like how her mother had to work.  However, despite this intense financial struggle, she knew that dropping out was not an option, and she persevered through the exhausting hours of both school and work which ultimately resulted in her getting a degree in biogeochemistry.  She even originally started out studying literature just like her mother did upon returning to college until she discovered that science was her calling.  Hope then realized that she wanted to be a scientist just as how her mother originally aspired to be one herself.  Hope and her mother both greatly resemble each other especially in terms of their dreams of becoming scientists.  However, Hope was successful in achieving her dream of becoming a very passionate scientist, and was not intimidated by the fact that the science field was mainly for men at the time.  She was determined to do what her mother couldn't and wanted to also break this barrier for aspiring women scientists to show that it was indeed possible.  In a way, Hope is a continuation of her mother and is like an extension of her very being.  Hope's mother's dream is continuously living on inside of Hope herself and it is what added to her a continuous driving force to become a scientist.  Hope wanted to honor her mother by becoming what she originally aspired to be and in a way, her mother is living through Hope.  Hope also admires her mother's strong, tough, and highly intellectual personality; which inspired to become just like her.  This is why Hope Jahren dedicated her book Lab Girl to her mother.