I expected agency budgets to be cut. I didn’t expect “70% reductions in force”, “overheads limited to 15%,” the whole Department of Education under threat of dissolution. We’re flung headlong back to times when most couldn’t afford college, where women, AAPoC, AAPI, were actively discouraged. I always knew my university could be closed and I could be made redundant. I didn’t expect the whole discipline - the whole framework of science and education - to be sent staggering to its knees.