Erik Medina ’21 in a lab at Princeton 22 Ransom Everglades LOG FALL 2025 or impenetrable, or removed from the real world day-today in a way other science subjects, like biology, aren’t. For a lot of students (myself included), chemistry can be found high on the list of “least favorite classes” – but, to Medina, it doesn’t have to be that way, and it shouldn’t be. “We need people who don’t do chemistry. If the world is all chemists, it’d be a really big problem. So, by no means do I expect people to share that [deep love of chemistry] or even to come anywhere close to that. But I do think that one of the biggest problems is that people aren’t exposed to how cool it really can be, and so it comes across as this huge drag,” he said. “It’s really not. There is nothing about chemistry that makes it harder than any other subject you could possibly try to learn.” Part of the problem, Medina says, is that many students feel they’re being asked to learn all of chemistry all at once, but he has tried to remedy that by taking his time with the curriculum and making sure to be professional and personable to his students, so that they can come to him for help the way his peers routinely do. He also has tried to move away from the all-digital classroom so that students can work closely with materials, with pen and paper, which he believes leads to better learning outcomes. He writes his own homework and test questions, hoping students will feel less enticed to use Google or ChatGPT, and also showing them the respect he feels they deserve by taking the time himself to create the work he will then ask of them. While Medina recognizes the inherent challenge in teaching students so close in age – Medina’s own younger brother is part of RE’s Class of 2029 – he has been grateful for the mentorship of other alumni-faculty members like Natland. During the hour-plus interview with Medina, I got to experience a hint of his teaching style. When I asked him to tell me about his thesis research, he took special care to explain everything in the most precise, accessible terms. He asked me frequent questions, making sure I – a student of the humanities through-andthrough – understood the basic concepts underlying his research. When I asked about his personal connection to the work of PVC upcycling, he told me that living in Miami, a city on the ocean deeply affected by pollution and climate change, was a motivating factor in trying to find more effective, less wasteful and toxic ways to reuse and create materials from plastics. It’s obvious that teaching comes easy to Medina. He speaks clearly and confidently, makes eye contact while explaining complex topics and takes his time to make sure he’s being understood. Maybe that facility for teaching is why Medina’s also hoping this year will bring with it some more of that “clairvoyance” that led him, in however roundabout a way, to RE in the first place. Currently at a sort of crossroads between undergraduate work and his PhD-to-come, Medina feels caught in the hard work of deciding if his future as a chemist lies in teaching, university research or industry work. “I don’t know yet that I want to do something in my life that actually requires going to grad school,” he said. “I think I would enjoy it as much as one could enjoy being a grad student ... but it’s such a long time. If I really don’t need it, is it the most productive use of my time? That was all floating in my head” during applications. Taking some time off to teach first, then, gives him a moment to reassess and recenter before diving into graduate research head-first. “In theory,” he continued, “teaching is something that I would like to pursue as a career, and I kind of wanted to know before I went to grad school whether or not that is actually something I wanted to do.” But while Medina might not be quite sure if his future lies in the classroom or a ways further from it, and while he might not have known that he would be returning to Ransom Everglades so quickly back when he and his friends joked about their eventual “takeover,” maybe his RE teachers and peers knew something he didn’t. “You could see how he loved teaching and tutoring. It was always clear, you know?” said Natland, who taught Medina in his last year at Ransom Everglades. “He loves sharing knowledge, sharing his love of things like chemistry. He just loves helping people understand things. And I think he’s got a gift for that. I think there was a sense, even within the year after he graduated, that there would be some way that he might [come back]. “It’s a blessing to work with him, whether he was a student or a peer. I’m excited to work with him as a colleague, honestly, being an alum of the school myself,” he added. “I know he’s got the right kind of passion for it.” “He just loves helping people understand things. And I think he’s got a gift for that.” – Paul Natland ’02
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