Starting
out my college career I went to BYU. I knew what my endgame was (pre-medicine),
but I had only a rudimentary knowledge of what I needed to do to get there. I
had taken several college courses while in high school, but that had done
nothing to prepare me for the stresses of college life. I performed poorly in
my life sciences classes, though I passed. I knew that everyone had a tough
first year, but I was warned by my father who’s a physician that if I didn’t
straighten up by the next time I attended college, I may not get into medical
school.
When I
returned from serving a two-year mission for my church in which I was able to
fine tune my study habits and deepen my own self-discipline, I applied to
transfer to SUU and was accepted. My life sciences courses began as a means to
an end, but I soon found myself enveloped in concepts that held my interest,
and I began to perform very well in my classes. I would study into the night,
partially because I wanted to do well on my exams and in the class, but also
because it was hard to stop. My understanding of the laws that govern life
deepened from passing interest to mind encompassing. I discovered mysteries
that are ripe for discovery.
This
isn’t to say that there weren’t difficulties along the way. Perhaps it would be
a poor score on an exam here, or a feeling that I wasn’t getting anywhere
there. I also had difficulties in my home life along the way, but things
inevitably would swing back into the green and I’d be able to develop my
abilities in scientific reasoning and investigation with greater vigor.
The
semester before this one, I took a series of classes that really challenged me
and the way I saw this world. I took Biochemistry II and Cell and Molecular
Biology. I was fascinated throughout. We were able to see the building blocks
of life in Biochem while in Cell and Molec, we would see how people found out
how these things worked by performing a plethora of critical literature reviews
of very relevant articles. At this time, I was also working on a research
project with Dr. Howard to isolate a halophilic bacterial isoform of malate
synthase and discover how its active site performs the action of forming malate
by using x-ray crystallography. In this way, I was able to see a lot of the
concepts we had learned about in class in action. It really showed me how this
kind of stuff actually works and how I can contribute to the advancement of
human knowledge.
I have
applied to various medical schools and am currently awaiting invitations to
interview with them. The world I am attempting to join once I graduate will be
completely shaped by scientific discovery including chemistry, biology,
physics, and psychology. I expect everything I learn in the world to come to
have some kind of basis in scientific discovery. As I further pursue a career
in healthcare, I hope that discoveries completely guide my learning. I have
learned to be fascinated by journal articles in all their peer-reviewed glory.
I hope that the discoveries we make will lead to the betterment of the human
condition and the world we live in as a whole. Science has helped to shape me
into the man I’ve become. I think we can expect it to continue to shape and
guide our society into a better place and thus make us a more tolerant, less
judging, and advanced nation. Such is my hope.
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