It is funny how life has many twists and turns… sometimes with where we end up living, who we date, and what we end up doing for the rest of our lives. One of the biggest things for me is trying to figure out what I want to do the rest of my life… and it’s hard for many people my age… but its interesting to see how things work out.
Growing up I was very creative – I loved to draw, write, and sing. I always thought I was going to be a writer or journalist (and I have done some writing for my work study and have been published in the local newspaper – something I dreamed about as a young girl.) I also was strong in math (aside from calculus and my early experience with stats) and health related classes.
In high school I dabbled in different areas – I was in chorus, in creative writing and our school’s writing club, in honors classes, and lastly, I took some CTE (Career and Technical education) courses in health science – which if I took the last class, I could have taken the state test to get my CNA. In 10th grade, I started to realized I had an interest in science. I took biomedical tech – which I did well in and enjoyed learning about forensics and genetic technology. I fell in love with biology when I took honors biology and learned that we were going over genetics – I actually went home and told my mother, “I really love biology {class}” and heard “I always feel asleep in that class.” My other favorite class was psychology – both general and AP.
When I got to college, I anticipated that I was going to major in psychology, and eventually become a art/music therapist. But when I took my first biology class, I fell in love with the subject. My first biology professor, Dr. H., was really enthusiastic about mosquitoes and biology. I had not seen passion like that during my first semester of college, so it was different.
For two and half years, I went back and forth between doing biology or psychology. So – this meant I took a variety of classes for my major and minor- including behavior modification, environmental change and human health, parasitology, etc. By the time I graduate next May – I will have a BS in biology and psychology minor – which I am only 2 classes short of a major… (and env science and chemistry)
During the moments of not knowing what I am meant to do – I had several opportunities in both areas. During spring break of my sophomore year (2014), Dr. H offered to take me for coffee (we both may have a slight love for coffee) at Panera Bread. While we were there, she asked if I would be interested in helping with her research. I didn’t know whether to be super excited or surprised. She knew I was insanely curious about thing and understood more difficult concepts and topics. Well – I ended helping some but it didn’t count toward anything until I became a junior. At that point, I became super anxious about school and the opinions of those around me that did the research (honestly not the smartest thing).
During my junior year – I took experimental psychology – (I thought I was going to combine majors – again it didn’t work out) – although I struggled in that class, I learned so much. My favorite part of the class was being allowed to create my own experiment. I chose to do my experiment on faces (thanks to interpersonal relations). It was cool to run the experiment (and everyone showed up that participated) and do the statistics. I even got to present the research to my biological research methods class – and everyone was interested. This past semester I was able to take a TPS (topics course) that combined health psychology and behavior modification into aiding one of my professor’s research.
Lastly, almost 3 years ago, I had Dr. C. for an introductory biology class (Ecology and Evolution) – one of five classes I would have with her. She brought in black widows the first week of class – and I remember thinking, “that is soooo different.” She occasionally showed my intro bio class pictures of her macro photography of spiders – and she had similar passion I saw in Dr. H. I was amazed with how pretty a lot of the spiders were when I saw the pictures and she would always answer my questions about them. Taking entomology with her this past semester was something memorable and I am glad I took it. I never in my life would have imagined being interested in insects and spiders (even those who have known me for 5+ years never would have guessed)
With this said – I have contemplated public health for my masters. (with an overall goal of becoming a professor). OR if that doesn’t work out – look into environmental health positions with my 4-year degree.
So far, my internship has sparked my interest in learning more about the behind the scenes of mosquito control and disease vector research. Sometimes, the best thing you can do is go for what you had a passion for…
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