Undergrad Reflections

Blair Ballard

As my Southern Utah University journey comes to an end, it is truly a pleasure to look back on the experience that I have had here. I’ve come a long way from where I was when I started. I came into Cedar City with a passive interest in just about everything. I’m still envious of the people who knew exactly what they wanted to do before college and I wish I could have been one of them. The only thing I truly knew about what I wanted to study when I started college was that I didn’t want to do a lot of math. In hindsight that is pretty comical considering the amount of applied math there is in all life science topics. Thankfully, a couple good teachers in high school inspired me and peaked my interest in the life sciences. This led me to take General Biology 1. While I can’t say that class was my favorite, it kept my interest enough for me to take the second half of the class from Paul Spruell. That was the class that I can really attribute to the rapid growth of my interest in biology. Paul was a fantastic teacher who loved to help students succeed (almost as much as he loved fish). After that, it seems like I can credit at least one class or teacher in each of the subsequent semesters that helped me refine my educational interests.

As my interests have evolved, it’s fun to think about my ideas of what science is and how it works before I got here. To say that my understanding was shallow might be an understatement—I never understood the amount of work that goes into all scientific research. Not just work, but also the amount of precision that is required to get research accepted. The amount of skepticism in science isn’t well understood by people who don’t study hard sciences. Coming into college, I was no stranger to competition, but I certainly didn’t understand the amount of competition that occurs between scientists. My idea that everyone in the scientific community was on the same side was quickly changed when I came to college. There is always someone who is a creative thinker and comes up with some brilliant research. However, I’ve learned that for every one of those, there are 10 people who want to disprove that person’s work. Therefore, when some research comes out and is accepted, it’s nothing short of a miracle. Thankfully, as I’ve continued through college, I’ve come to understand that the skepticism in this field is necessary. Ultimately, everyone is working for the common good, but one has to truly know what they are doing before they claim to change the world. It’s a daunting task and it might seem like it is impossible to make an impact in the field, but it is made that way for a purpose. Otherwise, just about anyone could make claims to who knows what and have it become accepted. Having a skeptical scientific community is vital to leading an educated society around us.

Now that I’m graduating and moving into the real world, I realize that it now partially becomes my responsibility to become one of those skeptical people who review other people’s work. I consider myself more educated in this field than the average citizen and I should do my part to make sure that facts are truly facts. Conversely, I now relish the opportunity to go forward in my career and find new things. In fact, I even look forward to being analyzed and having some work torn apart in whatever field I choose to go into. I’ve chosen to become a skeptical person so that means that I must learn to accept being around a lot of skeptical people throughout my life and I’m okay with that now. I’m going to be okay with not always being right. That definitely wasn’t the case coming into college.

My appreciation for science has increased each semester I’ve been at school here at SUU. That’s one thing I don’t think is going to change going forward into the real world. I plan on diving even deeper into science for grad school and continuing to learn after I’m completely done with school. I’ve always loved to learn and I hope that never changes. There are so many intriguing things being found every day, not just in life sciences, but in every scientific subject. Thanks to the 4 years of great classes and teachers here at SUU, I feel like I can comprehend a lot of the work that is being done and appreciate it. Additionally, I can truly appreciate some of the geniuses that have come before me. I can appreciate Darwin, Pasteur, Watson and Crick, and whoever else made significant steps in the field of biology. I’m sure that a sizeable chunk of the world knows who those guys were, but I know what they did and will forever be able to appreciate it.

            Since I plan on pursuing a career within the health sciences, everything I learned here at SUU is going to help me going forward. In order to become proficient at what I want to do, I’m going to have to keep up with the latest work that is being done out there. I’m going to have to keep that desire to learn in order to be very good at what I do. The professional world of health sciences changes so rapidly that it will probably be just as much work keeping up with current research as it is to physically do the job. That is something that I hope to embrace in the future. I want to see great things happen in my lifetime and I want to be a part of it as well. Science is only going to get more important as we learn more about genetics, medicine, world climate, and whatever else is being studied extensively right now. Knowing that cancer might be cured in my lifetime is such a cool thing to think about, but what is even more exciting is knowing that I might have an opportunity to be the one doing the research. Maybe I won’t be doing the research, but I feel like I may have a part in understanding and applying the research in order to accomplish it. It’s an exciting time to be a scientist.

I will look back on these years at SUU with extreme gratitude and satisfaction. This is a great school run by amazing people and I hope it only gets better. Any recognition SUU receives is well deserved and makes me feel proud to call it my alma mater.  I will miss this place. The relationships I’ve created with teachers and fellow students have been highlights in my life and I hope they continue going forward. I hope that the knowledge I gained here will act as a springboard into the professional world for me. This college experience has changed how I view the world around me in many different ways. For that, I cannot thank the staff and people around me enough!