David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

organic chemistry. She was miserable
and angry. She didn’t want to be
working on organic chemistry at three in
the morning, when all of that work didn’t
seem to be getting her anywhere. “I
guess that was when I started thinking
that maybe I shouldn’t pursue this any
further,” she said. She’d had enough.
The tragic part was that Sacks loved
science. As she talked about her
abandonment of her first love, she
mourned all the courses she would have
loved to take but now never would—
physiology, infectious disease, biology,
math. In the summer after her sophomore
year, she agonized over her decision:
“When I was growing up, it was a