The journey
Biology has always been a great passion of mine. I can’t imagine doing anything that is not biology related. There is a starter biology course here at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and it is a freshman class. Unfortunately, this biology class is referred as the “weed out” course, where we as biology majors see if we have what it takes to comtinue the rigorous major. Many students do not pass this biology course, and many try again but to no avail. Unfortunately, that was me. I have attempted this class more than 2 times. Each time I would get closer to passing, but there was just something so deterring about it. There had to have been a reason many students, including me, were not passing this class. I was not about to find out a third time, but I was not ready to give up yet. I did some research as to which schools offered the same class with an even better method of teaching. The school I found was the University of Wisconsin- Stout.
My Plan
The plan is to commute 30 minutes daily to Stout, even on snowy days. I knew this had to be a priority of mine and making it so was yet another indicator that I was not ready to give up. I have decided to take on this new route for the rest of the semester. As of now, I have nothing but wonderful things to say about my professor, and his curriculum. I have a ninety six percent as in his class, and I am doing many hands on experiments in lab that I did not imagine myself doing in my college career.
In lab, we are manipulating our very own gene and figuring out what that gene does by stopping multiple functions using URA 3. From there, we will be publishing our findings. It is all exciting to me and very motivating to know that my efforts will be paying off. As for lecture, my professor has a noticeably straightforward way to ensure we learn the content and apply what we have learned long-term, rather than having us memorize the content for a month and testing us so that we could forget later. Instead, we are quizzed daily and the only way we are allowed to retake those quizzes is if we show our professor what we have done to ensure a better score.
I was not too sure how I was going to feel about taking a class at another school, but as it is now, this is just a new adventure!
