Elif Su is a sophomore at Triangle Math and Science Academy in Cary, North Carolina, and whose interests include cooking and playing basketball.
On the first day of the 2018-19 academic year, I switched to another school and had to redo my schedule for my sophomore year. As I was choosing my electives, my counselor told me to take Principles of Biomedical Science.
Even though I told him that I don’t want to do anything in the medical field, he insisted on giving me the class, and I ended up taking it. It was my first block on my first day in my new school. For some reason, I thought I would hate that class at some point.
On our first day, our teacher explained what the class would be about. It was basically us investigating a fictional woman with a bunch of diseases, and we had to find out why she died while learning about human bodies along the way.
I was right: It was going to be a boring science class with impossible-to-pronounce Latin terms, which is basically everything I hate. I wanted to drop the class so bad. However, neither my dad nor my counselor let me do so.
Our first unit was an introduction to the biomedical world, covering basic terms and such. Since I was semi-forced to take the course, I tried to push myself to like it, but being the most stubborn person in the whole entire universe, I just could not do it.
In our second unit, we learned about genes and DNA. As we were learning about them, I realized that I knew more than I thought I did. Imagine hating on something for your whole life, but discovering you have more knowledge about it than some people who are actually interested in it.
I was kind of having fun learning about the human body, but I couldn’t admit it. As we learned more and more, I was amazed by it. Everything about our body is just imperfectly perfect.
When we got to the heart unit, which we recently finished, we did a heart dissection. I was always interested in how our hearts work. I felt enlightened by the perfect design of the heart, which ultimately made me appreciative for having a healthy heart.
PLTW Biomedical Science helped me discover a new interest: Now that I know more about the human body, I actually watch documentaries and read articles about it in my free time.
If I dropped that class on my first day, I would have no idea that biomedical science can be so much fun. The whole experience I had with the course made me realize how much I can miss out on in life if I keep being stubborn with my opinions.
It definitely taught me to be more open-minded and be open to new things in life. I will try to be more skeptical toward my own opinions rather than remain adamant and miss out on discovering new interests.
PLTW’s blog intends to serve as a forum for ideas and perspectives from across our network. The opinions expressed are those of each guest author.
