Education

There seems to be two camps of thinking about course decisions in my major. Biochem majors have a lot of requirements; it's the nature of being interdisciplinary. Some people in my major say "I'm probably going to grad school, I'm probably going to be thinking about science for the rest of my life and in a lab for the rest of my life, while I'm in undergrad I might as well take as much liberal arts stuff as I can." This seems legit, and this seems like where I thought I would be. After all, I'm the one who nearly didn't take gen chem my freshman year because I was ambivalent about the idea of studying science at a liberal arts school (and thought I was going to be just a biology major since I abhorred chemistry in high school). I get where that side's coming from.

But somehow, somewhere along the lines, I changed. I can't get enough science coursework. It's very strange. Every semester, there's another elective class that really want to take. Last semester I took advanced synthetic organic and a biochemistry seminar that fulfilled no graduation requirements. Next semester I'm taking advanced mechanistic organic, intro inorganic, and a biology seminar all of which do not fulfill any requirements. What is wrong with me? Am I becoming unbalanced?

And here's the thing: I love literature. I love music. I love history. I'd like to take some economics. I took a great religion class freshman year. I read novels and non-fiction unrelated to science voraciously during breaks. I like liberal arts classes, and there are any number of other things I am interested in beyond chemistry and biology.

So what changed? I guess part of it has to do with slogging through so much intro coursework to get here. Intro bio, intro chem, intro physics, even organic (as much as I liked it) was essentially an intro class. Now I am finally qualified to take small upper-level courses in my major with people who are serious about the subject matter, especially in elective courses. I know the professors and they know me, and it is all around a great experience usually. Seminars are great because they are more like journal clubs than classes. But you can't take those sorts of classes until you have the background.

The other thing is that I'm just do damn interested in everything. I seriously wish I could double chemistry & biology. It's the same side of me that wishes I could take everything under the sun that is not science that wants to take everything I can take in the two departments. Of courses, taking everything I would like to take is just simply impossible, but so it goes.

I'm also still discovering what exactly my scientific interests actually are. There's so much I just simply do not know, and the more I learn, the more I figure out what exactly it is that grabs me. For example, realizing that biochemistry is kind of it's own thing, and not exactly biology-meets-chemistry. Which is fine, great to learn about, and not what I want to do ultimately.

Sometimes I wonder, though, if I am jipping myself out of my last shot at taking liberal arts courses?