1       1.      Describe your interest in and understanding of the life sciences as you entered SUU.

My interests in the life sciences pertained particularly to health. My understanding of what that looked like though was pretty far off from what the optimal would be considered. I didn’t realize how one enzyme would contribute so much to an entire disease. In other words, my understanding of the life sciences was pretty abysmal in comparison to where it is at now and even still I could use a lot more time to fully understand the life sciences.

2. What has been your biggest insight on how scientists work and think about the world?

For me I didn’t realize just how much research has to be done when just one point is trying to be made. I came here thinking that just one article or part of an experiment is enough to prove (I know very bad word) something. In other words, the biggest insight I have now is the viewing of meta-analyses and how they contribute to the understanding of the scientific community. These are the biggest contributors to my understanding of the world around me as they take multiple pieces of data prioritizing them based on chances of error (type 1 or 2) and etc. I believe that text books as well are a sort of meta-analysis so I will lump those into here. Basically, I find the world to be much more complex (and thereby more difficult to piece together the puzzle) than I originally thought.

3.      .             3.     How do you imagine science will play a part in the world you’ll be joining once you graduate?

At minimal my background in science has made me quite the critical thinker. Having said this, it isn’t something small to scoff at. This ability will allow me to look into just about anything and evaluate whether or not the information is useful in comparison to another source. This could apply to economics, social systems, science, or the intersections between disciplines even. I am glad to be a more well informed individual as a result of this skill from my science courses. I will be able to use my scientific field as a teacher, scientist or maybe even just as a person in the general public hoping to help others learn something in their lives. I hope to make a daily activity out of this skill, where I can continue to expand my knowledge on the topics I am most interested in.