Healthy Learning by Meghan

Healthy Learning by Meghan - August 2017 Scholarship Essay

If I were to be a college professor, I would teach health. Throughout my experience in health classes, I have noticed a commonality among all of them -- they all teach you real-world information. Sure, it’s important to know standard deviation and that mitochondria are the powerhouse of the cell but I have realized that the class that has genuinely taught me the most is health class and if I were a college professor, I would want to have the same resonating effect on my students.

I'm sure I am not alone when I say that I was intimidated when I first walked into health class freshman year of high school. There is a vast assumption that all health class is is models of genitalia and talk of STDs and so on. But health class is so much more than that. In health class, I learned how to eat healthier, the importance of exercise, why I shouldn't smoke, how to care for my body, and many more life lessons that I would carry with me through my young adult life.

I have learned a lot about the human body during my journey towards nursing. I had to memorize the name and location of every blood vessel, how blood flows through the heart, even the names of each indention on the skull, yet anatomy never taught me what men and women should be feeling for when we are told to “self-exam” ourselves for cancer -- that’s where health class came into play. Most every class should have these kinds of real-life applications that have the ability to quite literally save lives. As a nursing major, saving lives is something that I want to do so if I were to be a college professor, I would teach health class to do just that.