I want to talk about what influences you to make a decision on what education path you want to follow. To do that I am going to talk about what influenced me to become a science nerd.

I didn’t always love science. In grade school I thought it was one of the harder subjects to grasp. However, I realize now that was probably due to the fact that in grade school and some of high school science was all about memorizing and nothing else. I never learned or understood the significance of what I was memorizing.

My sophomore year in high school, I had a teacher who made me hate science. He would come into class everyday and talk about himself, what kinda motorcycle he had, what kinda gun he hunted with and what he had done the previous day. After that was over he would tell us to open our books and do all the questions in the back of the chapter. Some days he would come in and tell us to read the chapter and then write it word for word in our notebooks. I honestly think I remember maybe two times where he talked about what we were actually reading. He would give us tests that had to do with the chapter we just wrote and answered questions about. The tests would also include questions like, “What gun did I say I liked to hunt with?”. or “What part on my motorcycle did I say messed up this weekend?”. I do not by any means think think this class was hard. Who can’t repeat on a test the exact questions that had wrote the day before? It’s just that I found this class to be pointless and my interest in science declined rapidly.

Exactly a year later I took a science class that wasn’t required, but all my friends were taking it so of course I did too. It was advanced biology, and I wasn’t very excited about it. On the first day the teacher came in excited. He was excited to meet all of us and very excited to talk about biology. Within the next couple of weeks he seemed to reach inside me and pull out the science nerd in me. Yes, this class still had a lot of memorizing, but there were hands on experiments such as dissecting. I think what brought the science nerd out in me the most is the fact that this teacher was very interested and involved in what he was teaching and tried to get you involved too.

After that class I decided that I would love to be a doctor and I haven’t been discouraged ever since. I am cellular and molecular biology major with a concentration in pre-medicine and I am about to take my MCAT in April. I don’t regret my choice one bit and its all because one class and one teacher could spark my interest.

My point to this rant is to show that how people learn is very much influenced by how they are taught and the way they are taught. When you help someone learn something it is very important that you not only understand something, but you are interested and involved in the subject yourself. You can’t teach someone something you know nothing about and expect them to learn. Besides, what is the point of teaching someone? It is to help them learn and to possibly influence them in a way that will effect their life positively.