1.24.2010

Learning everyday

Although I’ve learned to do titrations and the causes of each war, one of the most important things I’ve learned at NCSSM is why I get an education.

I remember absolutely hating NCSSM the first couple weeks. I didn’t understand anything in class and my grades were dropping everyday. I started to wondering, “why did I come to a school 300 miles away from my family just to get bad grades and not get sleep while the teachers didn’t even teach us properly?” After a few weeks I figured out that the teachers weren’t trying to pour knowledge into our brains and help us get into Ivy’s, they were trying to guide us in the right directions so we could learn for ourselves and find joy in learning.

For example, in calculus we were given a lab that told us to do these simple calculations. After a couple minutes of pointless math we started to figure out an easier method to use. I thought, “Why didn’t the teacher just tell us this in the first place?” At the end of the worksheet, we were told that the method we figured out was in fact the chain rule of derivatives. An actual rule that a mathematician had found hundreds of years ago. This gave me a great sense of accomplishment; I then realized what our teachers were doing.

This way of investigating the subject matter makes me much more eager to learn, which is, in the end, why I’m getting an education. Learning information and facts isn’t why I wake up and go to my classes every day; the pleasure I get from figuring things out and becoming more knowledgeable is.

1.16.2010

Independence

As I was thinking about my family and friends back home, I realized what people meant about becoming independent once you leave home. During the summer before I came to NCSSM when people told me that I would have to learn to be independent, I just let those words go in one ear and out the other. I thought as a mature young adult I was already very independent and self motivated.

I was thinking of all the times my friends and parents were there to console and motivate me. Often times I did not even have to tell them I needed help, we were just always together and they knew without me telling them. After coming here I realized that now, I was not just living alone, but so far away from them that if I wanted their help, I would have to reach out to them. The side of independence that I’m starting to learn is that I wont always have people waiting to help and comfort me, but rather I need to ask them and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. I am learning that I can no longer be as dependent on someone because of we’re physically apart. At the same time, I will always have people around me to support me, I just have to learn to reach out to them.

1.10.2010

Into the future

These past couple days, and especially during break, college and future careers have been continuously on my mind. It started with scheduling when to take the SATs and ACTs which lead to what colleges to apply to... that ultimately lead to the question of what career to pursue.
Thinking about careers has made me realize that I have such a wide range of interests. I suppose studying psychology would be fun, especially children’s psychology and how brains learn. I am also considering molecular biology so I can help with the human genome project. Economics has also caught my after beginning to read about current events in middle school and taking Civics and Economics.
After a while, I recognized that the more important question was what kind of impact I want to make in the world with my life. Do I want to save lives directly as a doctor? Do I want to teach others the joy of learning as a professor? Or do I want to do research and develop the modern world as a scientist? I believe this is a much harder question to answer. This gives me a perspective on not only my future jobs and schooling that I have to go through, but what kind of person I want to be and where I want to set my morals.