Summary

In the Prologue, Olive Smith was unsure about pursuing her Ph.D. until she received encouragement from a man she met in a restroom. Olive had wandered into this restroom, believing it was a women’s bathroom, to remove her expired contacts because they were irritating her eyes. However, it turned out that the restroom was part of what this man called his lab. Olive did not get the man’s name and could not see him clearly because her eyes were watering so badly. She assumed he was a graduate student as well.

Olive admitted to the man she was worried she was not good enough to get a Ph.D. Instead of saying something trite, the man asked Olive why she wanted a Ph.D. He explained that it did not matter if she was good enough. Her reason for...