Hi! My name is Liz Galante and I am a freshman from Manalapan, New Jersey in the Division of Undergraduate Studies. When it comes to picking a career for my future I change my mind almost every day and I am never capable of figuring out what I want to be. However, I am more than certain that i know that I want to stick away from any field that involves many hard science courses! I see myself more in the communications or psychology field when I’m older. For whatever reason it may be, science never came easy to me and was never a subject in school I would say I particularly enjoyed learning about. I feel this is simply due to how science was taught in my schools since I was young. Teachers never made the topics I knew had the potential of being interesting, interesting. Along with this, I had many teachers who had literally brainwashed my peers and I to think that science can only be enjoyable for the most intelligent students in the class. I am certain that other people feel the same way. Feel free to read further on how others feel about this here Having this constant mindset took over me at many times and didn’t allow me to enjoy going to class and learning about science. If I’m being honest, I couldn’t wait to get out of high school so that I could finally be done with biology, physics, chemistry and all that boring stuff (in my opinion) and finally take classes that I wanted to take and be in a classroom environment where the teacher didn’t make me feel bad about myself. At New Student Orientation I was a little disappointed and nervous when I found out I had to take a science class. I explained to my advisor how I felt about science and he helped lead me in the right path and suggested to me this course because it is not the type of science I have typically been in. The line that really convinced me when I read about SC200 on University Bulletin was; “This course teaches an appreciation of science and scientific thinking. It is aimed at making non-scientists more informed consumers of science by improving their ability to distinguish good science from bad science, and science from non-science.” I can confidently say that I am finally sitting in a science class that I genuinely want to be in with a teacher who genuinely cares! I more than excited to see that is in store for both myself and my peers!
I completely understand you when you say you don’t know what you want to do with your life. I am also in the Division of Undergraduate Studies and I change my future goals all the time. I also agree with you about K-12 science teachers always finding a way to make class REALLY boring and unrelatable. The difference is, I feel as though the topics in this class are much more relatable and practical to us than learning about a lysosome, whatever that is!
– Nathan O’Brien