Hello Everyone,

My name is Amanda Rust and I am a sophomore from Haskell, NJ (I will be very excited if anyone has heard of it!). My parents’ careers both lie in the Science field, with my mom being a pharmacist and my dad an engineer. By default it was assumed that I would follow in their footsteps.  I guess sometimes the apple falls a little far from the tree because I loathe science.

The thought of learning how our bodies function, and the mechanisms of germs and disease do interest me, but when it comes to in depth classes about that material, I have to force myself to stay awake. In every Science class I have taken, I find myself questioning the importance of being there.  I also asked things like, “Why do I care about the velocity of a ball being thrown across a field?” and “What good is knowing the process of photosynthesis going to do me?”.  That information may be extremely important to some, but unfortunately it does not interest me at all. Last semester I took an astronomy class because I thought that stars and space were fascinating, but it was my least favorite class I have taken at Penn State so far.  The professor was great and some people loved it, but the material ended up being very unappealing to me.

Business and the economy is much more interesting to me, and my career path will steer in that direction.  I decided to take this class because the description “Science for people who hate science” caught my attention.  Our universe is such a complex place, and there are definitely scientific questions and topics that interest me. I also love learning new fun facts, especially cool scientific ones like these.  However, I rather learn analytically and skip the little details that have to be memorized and regurgitated on paper.  Blogging is a fun way to share thoughts about a topic, and interact with other students.  I have very high hopes for this class, and I think I am going to enjoy it a lot.