This course, Biology 101, was a true general education course in that we covered a broad range of topics in biology, which were mainly review of topics that are taught in high school biology with some additional depth.  I typically find the “softer” science of psychology to be more though-provoking than the fact-based “hard” sciences like biology, but I was surprised to find the lectures to be quite interesting and engaging precisely because they presented a perspective on the world that I am unused to examining.  Truthfully, though, I cannot say that this permanently changed my worldview in any perceptible way.  The review of basic scientific knowledge is what I expect will last with me through and beyond college, because I feel that this class finally cemented concepts like pH, the compositions of macromolecules, and reading a periodic table in my brain.  Now that I am more confident in my understanding of ideas such as these, I will hopefully be able to make connections to them in my future Communication Sciences and Disorders and Neurostudies courses, and in the courses I take in graduate school.

Another large part of the long-term benefit this class will have for me has little to do with the topic of the course itself.  I typically am able to get the grades that I want without having to sit down and actively study for assessments.  However, the material of this class was very different from what I am used to learning about and being tested on, and as the first test approached I felt very unprepared.  For the first time I can remember, I sat down and made a comprehensive study guide containing all of the information that we had learned in class, making sure as I did so that I understood what I was writing.  I ultimately felt very confident while taking the test, and found that most of the information I had studied so in-depth was not even covered in the test.  The connection between studying and good test scores is definitely not a groundbreaking discovery, but the act of deciding to study, following through, and earning a positive result that I was proud of is something I do not do often enough, and one of the goals I had when coming into college was to make a habit of taking ownership of my education in that way.  The satisfaction and knowledge that I got from that experience was very rewarding, and I hope that it will lead to more actions like that in the future.