Science and I

For me, science begins in early elementary school. My teachers would take the class to an unused classroom and would show us the processes of the scientific method. I was too young to appreciate it - I just enjoyed when things made a mess. As I grew older, I began to appreciate the methodology to it; the process behind making a hypothesis and then testing it relentlessly appealed to my excess of energy and my desire to discover more about the world. One of my best memories of high school is going through a six week long fruit fly lab in AP Biology. I felt so great when I proved my hypothesis about their gene inheritance correct at the end of those six weeks. While transitioning through high school, I began to apply this to things outside of a science lab - I would think about why and how things happened, and then do research or experiment to try and test my hypothesis. This leads me to think about science quite a bit.
When I'm not looking at science as a part of my life, I get my news on science through websites like Reddit. Reading about the latest technological advancements or new progress on a cancer cure is so easy when the knowledge of the Internet is in my pocket. The ease of access leads to science being a fairly common topic in my family. Even before Reddit, I could always ask my dad about some process or an experiment with my dad. Despite his career as a technology salesman, he has a strong background in science - something that influenced my interest. My interest in science as a career, however, is something that only happened recently. I took AP Biology and AP Chemistry at my high school, and had more fun and found it more interesting than any other classes I had taken in my high school career. So, with no real way to make a decision, I made life hard for myself and chose Biochemistry as a major.
Science as a career leads me to thoughts of STEM - STEM is a science, technology, engineering, or math career. STEM fields can range from geology, to chemical engineering, to sound systems, to solar engineering. Thoughts of STEM, for me, immediately bring up thoughts of sustainability, especially with recent articles on the degradation of the environment. Sustainability is the ability to avoid the depletion of natural resources in order to maintain an ecological balance - a goal to work towards. I hope that my time in this seminar explores the ideas of how STEM influences sustainability, and studies different ways to approach sustainability.