Maryam Zaringhalam's scheme to cheat her way into the smart class makes clear a huge flaw in the education system, and on the first day of grad school for her PhD, a fellow student tells Bianca Jones Marlin that she doesn't really belong there.

Stuck in a monsoon on Kauai, Belinda Fu unintentionally ruins a friendship with a classmate, and Matt Storrs blames a dinosaur scientist’s theory for the end of his marriage.

After being diagnosed with breast cancer and opting for bilateral mastectomies, Jenna Dioguardi becomes beholden to her cancer to-do list, and as an 11-year-old kid, Luke Strathmann makes it his life mission to get rich off of Beanie Babies.

Rita Rigano always had a complicated relationship with her mother, and it becomes even more fraught when her mother’s dementia worsens, and in the midst of writing her PhD dissertation, Jordyn Rice embarks on one last road trip with her mother, who is dying of lung cancer.

Thomas Dixon and Rachel Robinson manage to build a friendship, despite not remembering the exact moments they shared.

After a car crash alters Emily Winn's life forever, she must relive the trauma when she testifies in a deposition, and geneticist C. Brandon Ogbunu contemplates the role race has played in his academic career after he is confronted by the police.

When teenage Ron Hart accidentally walks through a glass door, he lands in the ER on the worst possible day: a tornado drill, and after a car accident leaves all of her teeth bent inward, Di Cai begins to rethink her life as a scientist.

Determined to become an academic, Rajyashree Sen must take on a broken system to secure a spot in a PhD program in Vienna, and Josh Barber dreams of studying fish, but when his father goes to jail and his mother is diagnosed with breast cancer, he’s left to care for his nine younger siblings.

When Mark Pitzer gets splashed with methyl cyanide, he turns to his new girlfriend in hopes of comfort, and hoping to impress his scientist date, Adam Selbst plans the perfect outing: the Central Park Squirrel Census.

Climate scientist Kim Cobb is exploring a cave in Borneo when rocks begin to fall, and neurobiologist Lyl Tomlinson is startled when he's accused of stealing cocaine from his former lab.