Au revoir
- Jenna Landsittel
- Jan 14, 2018
- 2 min read
Today is the day to head home.
Myself and two other friends started the day with a great brunch to end our trip on a yummy note. Then we made our way to SFO airport to make our flight back home to Memphis.
As I sat in the airport writing this blog, I reflected on the lessons I learned on this trip and several main ideas stuck out in my mind.
-The value of a great science education.
-There are more careers in Biology than education and medical.
-Relationships are everything.
I was lucky enough in high school to have a great science education, but only because I had a great science teacher. My teacher went out of her way to not only plan labs for us, but she funded the labs herself because our school system did not see the labs as necessary to learn. This resonated with me throughout the trip because of all the talk about improving science education, when really we need more passionate science educators that can stand up to school boards that do not value science.
Through talking to all the scientist about their careers and the path they took to get to their respective career I learned that there are so many careers where a Biology degree will be useful for. Before this trip I was under the impression that to be successful in biology you had to go to med-school or attain a PhD to become a professor. Dr. Jim Burnette at UCR was very passionate about science education to college freshman+ and he told us about many careers that our biology degrees could be used for that some of us had never heard before. This 2 or 3 hour meeting was more valuable to me than all of the "advising" meetings I have ever had.
One common theme in all of the meetings we had on our trip was "relationships." It is very important to treat everyone you meet with respect and to keep a relationship with them because you never know when your paths will collide in the future. Dr. Hom reinforced this thought because the reason we were meeting with most of these scientist was because he kept a relationship with them throughout his career.
Well, we've come to the end! Thanks for reading my thoughts, xoxo.
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