Serendipity is how penicillin1,2, microwave ovens3, Kevlar4,5, and numerous pharmaceuticals6,7 were discovered. It’s how many personal and professional relationships are established. It can generate new discoveries, project ideas, collaborations, and job opportunities.
Serendipity can change your life and your career.
This is how it changed mine.
Christina’s Serendipitious Adventures
During my junior year of college, one of my professors suggested I apply for an internship at a government laboratory, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). That is how I ended up in Gaithersburg, MD, for a summer, and how I met Dr. Katharine Gebbie, the director of the Physical Measurement Laboratory at the time8.
Dr. Gebbie gave a welcome presentation to the interns and encouraged us to make an appointment with her, saying she loved meeting the summer students. I felt that this was a significant opportunity, so I set up an appointment. Knowing I wanted to travel before graduate school, I asked her advice on how to make that happen. She advised me to work abroad because traveling without working for a year would make it hard for me to return to school.
Then she asked me if I was familiar with Japan. I admitted that I didn’t really know anything about it, but that I would love to learn more. From there, Dr. Gebbie referred me to another NIST scientist, Yoshi, who had connections with the Japanese standards institute, the National Metrological Institute of Japan (NMIJ). That kicked off a series of discussions, introductions, recommendations, and ultimately, an interview that led to me living and working in Japan for a year.
While I was in Japan, I applied for graduate school. I had applied for a few physics programs my senior year of college (before the NMIJ offer came through), but my time in Japan had shifted my focus. I was working with lasers, and I wanted to keep doing so in graduate school. I specifically looked for optics-focused Ph.D. programs where I could do laser development. That is how I ended up at the Center for Research and Education in Optics and Lasers (CREOL) at the University of Central Florida in Orlando. There, I got my Ph.D. in Optics, specializing in high power laser development, and I met and married my spouse.
Highlights of How Serendipity Played a Role
- Taking my professor’s advice to apply for the internship led me to Dr. Gebbie and her offer for a meeting. Neither my professor nor I had such a meeting in mind when we discussed the internship application.
- By accepting Dr. Gebbie’s offer for a meeting and following her advice to meet with Yoshi, I ended up living and working in Japan for over a year, something I never would have sought out for myself.
- My work in Japan changed my focus for graduate school programs from physics to optics, leading me to apply to programs I wouldn’t have the year before.
- That led me to CREOL, where I not only got to delve deep into laser development for my graduate work, but I also met my life partner.
There have been even more follow-on ripple effects. From where I sit today, I can point back to how my professor and Dr. Gebbie ultimately changed the entire trajectory of my life and career with a simple suggestion and an offer for a meeting.
Serendipity is Everywhere
I’m not alone in my experience. A friend of mine just published a paper with a collaborator whom she met by accident at a conference. In researching this newsletter, I came across a Wall Street Journal article, “Some People Are Just Lucky. You Can Make Yourself One of Them,” wherein the author describes meeting her husband by chance; the hotel where she meant to stay was full, and she met him in the hostel she ended up at instead. And, in his blog post on Serendipity Engines, Dan Stillman describes how an introduction and a phone call led to him delivering a full-day pre-conference workshop for Google’s SprintCon and many more afterwards. Stories of serendipity are everywhere!
Bring More Serendipity into Your Life
Just because serendipity results in things that you cannot plan does not mean you cannot engineer more serendipity into your world and reap the benefits of all those happy accidents.
In my workshops, I advise participants to set goals and plan networking activities to achieve those goals. I emphasize the importance of goals and strategy to give our work focus and make efforts more effective. That is important most of the time. But not all of the time.
To engineer more serendipity into your life and career, you need to allow space for randomness. Serendipity itself cannot be planned, but you can plan space for it to happen. Here are some suggestions for how to engineer more serendipity into your life and career.
Strategies for More Serendipity
- Try New Things: Whether this is walking a different way between buildings (or choosing to walk instead of driving), going to a new restaurant, introducing yourself to a coworker you haven’t met before, or trying a new hobby, doing something new opens you up to opportunities to meet people or discover things you would not have otherwise.
- Trying new things can require getting out of your comfort zone, which can allow impactful personal and professional growth. I was terrified to move to Japan, a country where I knew no one and didn’t speak the language, and it resulted in a period of immense personal and professional discovery for me.
- Take Advantage of Recommendations: These are especially ripe opportunities for serendipity because they are less random and more biased in your favor. This is a form of “Try New Things” that has an even higher serendipity yield. If someone who knows you thinks you would like a particular band, or restaurant, or suggests that you have a lot in common with their friend, follow through on their suggestion.
- This can be seen in my story where I took my professor’s advice to apply for the NIST internship and Dr. Gebbie’s advice to meet with another researcher.
- Be Observant: You can’t take advantage of serendipitous opportunities if you don’t notice them. This means putting your phone down and noticing what and who is around you, really listening when you talk with someone, asking follow-up questions, and staying focused and present rather than mentally going over the things you have to do today or daydreaming.
- Not that daydreaming doesn’t have a place! I just view it as more of an alone time activity while away from others.
- Seize Opportunities: Being observant is only half the battle. When you recognize an opportunity, the next step is seizing it, whether that’s introducing yourself, asking for contact information, following up, or simply saying “yes.” It’s very easy to let something life-changing slide past because we are afraid, slow to act, or we don’t want to change our current plan or schedule.
- I procrastinated on setting up the appointment with Dr. Gebbie. She made her offer at the beginning of the summer, and I didn’t meet with her until close to the end of my internship! Being “too busy” or putting things off can cause us to miss out, and I am so grateful to my 20-year-old self for (finally) taking the initiative!
- Build Space into Your Schedule: While I strongly recommend planning most of your networking activities for your selected goals, attending and participating in activities or networking events that aren’t obviously related to your goals or current career allows space for serendipity to take place. Leave a modicum of space in your schedule for non-goal-related events to encourage serendipity.
- Talk to Strangers: Serendipitous encounters can happen “in the wild”—on public transit, at the dog park, or waiting in line for a coffee. Be judicious and keep yourself safe, of course, but also don’t let anxiety prevent you from starting conversations under the right circumstances.
- Conferences are almost always the right circumstances! They are a special, temporary village where you know you have something in common with everyone, and there’s a greatly enhanced opportunity for serendipity.
- This strategy is beneficial in combination with “Being Observant.” If you notice someone has a water bottle sticker of a band you like, or a t-shirt from your university, it gives you a conversational opener.
Conclusion
Serendipity feels magical because of the life and career-changing outcomes it can produce. While you cannot predict the outcomes, it is entirely possible to engineer more serendipity. Doing new things, being observant, and seizing opportunities when they present themselves will enable you to generate more serendipity and capitalize on it for your happiness and success.
Some of the best things in life cannot be planned, but we can plan space for them to unfold.
Reader Feedback
Do you have a story of serendipity to share? Please let me know! I’d love to feature it on a Virtuous Cycles LinkedIn post.
First published in the Virtuous Cycles Newsletter on 12.19.2025
by Christina C. C. Willis
Further reading:
- Feintzeig, R. (2023). Some people are just lucky. You can make yourself one of them. The Wall Street Journal.
- Stillman, D. Instead of networking, build a serendipity engine. The Conversation Factory.
- Willis, C. C. C. (2025). The follow-up makes the difference. Virtuous Cycles.
- Cohen, N. (2025). Career networking’s secret weapon: engineer serendipity. Work Futures.
References:
- Science Museum. (2021). How was penicillin developed? https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/how-was-penicillin-developed
- Gaynes, R. (2017). The discovery of penicillin—new insights after more than 75 years of clinical use. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 23(5), 849–853. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5403050/
- Electrolux Group. The microwave oven: from accident to household essential. https://www.electroluxgroup.com/en/the-microwave-oven-from-accident-to-household-essential-29720/
- Science History Institute. Stephanie L. Kwolek. https://www.sciencehistory.org/education/scientific-biographies/stephanie-l-kwolek/
- American Chemical Society (ACS). Stephanie Kwolek (1923—2014).https://www.acs.org/education/whatischemistry/women-scientists/stephanie-kwolek.html
- Ban, T. A. (2006). The role of serendipity in drug discovery. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, 8(3), 335–344. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17117615/
- Linder, J. N. (2025). What we can learn from accidental pharmaceutical discoveries. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mindfulness-insights/202411/what-we-can-learn-from-accidental-pharmaceutical-discoveries
- National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). (2025). Gebbie, physics visionary and mentor to Nobel laureates, dies at 84. https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2016/08/gebbie-physics-visionary-and-mentor-nobel-laureates-dies-84
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