My Journey of Science

Megan Robinson

Biol 4500

Professor Karpel

December 8, 2016

My Journey of Science

My interest in science stems from a long time before entering as a freshman at Southern Utah University.  I have always wanted to be just like my mother and follow in her footsteps, whatever she liked I liked as well.  Growing up my mother had, and still has a career of being a dietitian, and would teach me how different foods affect your body differently. So I thought that when I went to college I would graduate in nutrition and be accepted into the dietetic program at some college.  As I grew up and went to high school my interest went more into how the body was working and became more curious about how to do experiments in which it could help explain why the body works the way it does, how interactions between humans and nature work together, and how scientist can make the world better.  With this, I had the plan of becoming a biologist.

As a freshman, I had the concept that you would graduate with a biology degree and then from there you could do anything.  I didn’t understand that biology is such a broad subject and that from taking general biology class encompasses so many career opportunities.  As I progressed in my schooling and taking more specific biology classes, I found my passion for studying diseases. In microbiology or any other biology class, whenever we lectured and discussed parasitic organisms that are the cause of many diseases it would have my full attention. And I wanted to know what career I could get into that would let me be surrounded with information of what diseases are currently occurring and how could I help be part of the research being done.

This is when I learned that the professors are there to help guide us to the careers we are most interested in.  My freshman year I would never go into the professor’s office, I thought that they were just there to teach, not to help us find a career path.  My sophomore year I had gone into my professor of ecology’s office when I needed help with an assignment.  After she had helped me find the answer she asked me what I was planning on doing with my biology degree after graduating.  At this time, I still was in the mindset that I have a biology degree I can do everything with it if I wanted to do some research here I could or if I wanted to teach I could.  But I didn’t really know what you really could do with a biology degree.  She could see right through me and asked what really peaked my interest, and I told her I loved learning about diseases.  She then introduced me to the field of epidemiology. From that time forward I chose the classes that help me understand the science being done in the field that was somewhat related to diseases.

Through each of the classes, I have taken it has given more insight into how scientists work and come up with the questions that help the world around us.  My personal biggest insight to how scientists work was through this capstone class.  I understood through the previous classes that scientists come up with a question and then perform research to see what has already been done if any and then try a way of understanding what is happening.  This capstone class has given me a taste of becoming a scientist because we were able to go anywhere with the prompts and lectures in class.  We had to perform the research and understand the topics.

Capstone has also helped us solidify that we have the tools to find the answers to many questions. It has allowed us to use the knowledge we have thus far and expanded it to answer further questions.  Like the scientist in the workforce, we were able to do similar research and understand the research that has been done on subjects of diseases.  Another insight to the research being done is that sometimes there isn’t an answer for that experiment.  That, not all the experiments or research perform have the results that we want.  And that it is okay if it doesn’t work out the first time, the human population doesn’t have all the answers, that's why there is a need for scientists.

I believe that I will be using science long after graduating from Southern Utah University.  I am pursuing a career in epidemiology and doing research on what outbreaks are currently happening.  And be able to use science to help educate the public and what steps to take to prevent outbreaks or control the outbreaks occurring. But this is not only where I will use science in my life, I can use it for everything.  I can use science to teach my future family, I can use it for my own curiosity.  And learning at Southern Utah University it has provided me the tools to do my own research.