Summary

In Chapter 4, Jahren describes her four years as an undergraduate student at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. She had an array of jobs to supplement her scholarship, working twenty hours a week while class was in session and more during breaks. One of those jobs was at the pharmacy of a local hospital. There, she first worked as a “runner,” carrying drugs to various parts of the hospital. She was also tasked with taking urgent prescription information to the techs who mixed the compounds. She felt that her work was part of saving lives. The early days of the experience prompted her to choose “The Use and Meaning of Heart' in the novel, David Copperfield, for a term paper in her English class.

She soon began to realize her first impressions of the job and her idea...