Symbiosis in Biology by Asia

Symbiosis in Biology by Asia - August 2017 Scholarship Essay

My favorite classes in all my 12 years of sometimes excruciating public school education were Art and US History in seventh and tenth grade respectively. Art class featured a Bob Ross caricature as my teacher, outrageous hair, sentimental anecdotes and all, while he tried to simply teach us how to not hot glue our fingers together in our pursuit of sticking tiny trees by our tiny clay castles. Class entwined the journey of artistry and questioning the merits of art. Beauty and art are subjective, thus I thought myself to be the modern day equivalent of Georgia O’Keefe. Meanwhile, the torture in US History knew no bounds. Every day I lived in fear of a test or quiz on the material the class was supposed to read the night before. Of course, the simple solution was to read every night, a lesson I only learned too late into my tenth grade career before my GPA could plummet to buried levels. My history teacher did not mean to coddle our brains into a gooey substance of submissive acceptance for our horrible past as a country, but nurture the minds of those who will care and strive for better in the future. In an environmental mixture of creativity and hardship spurned its liberation, myself.
Thus, if I ever found myself in a classroom or lecture hall, standing in the middle with a podium, sweaty palms, and a class addendum, I hope I would not be like my lackadaisical art teacher or my Stalin-esque history dictator. Both experiences have offered me the polar sides of freedom, and its benefits and negatives. There was a strict nature to history, facts and opinions from both winners and losers. Art held a free approach; there was so much creative area available, I did not know what to do and where to start when there is no finite beginning and end to art. In the end, I would find myself in front of a science class, teaching genetics or environmental biology.
In biology, there are facts, identified truths that will build possible truths and hypotheses while changing the future in several areas. Although, it is not history. With the facts presented, there are several avenues to implement other knowledge to study and create new, unidentifiable facts with ingenuity and passion. Although, it is not art. There are boundaries to interpretation and subjectivity. As a mixture of both history and art spurned its liberation, biology.
As a biology professor, the hope is that there are at least a few future researchers in the crowd that will find the cure to cancer or crack the question of cloning. It would be excellent to teach someone that will invent the elixir of eternal youth and administer some for their old professor, but that is not the wider goal in my mind. Just as my art teacher did, I only want to be able to inspire them and carry on the love for the subject started by my teachings. Just as my history teacher did, they will carry on a confident attitude and self assurance in their possession of hard work and extensive knowledge. There is a fervid passion to inspire the youth that will carry on the love and legacy started by the professor. The professor’s job is to educate, but the students’ jobs are to use that education with purpose.