{"id":1401,"date":"2018-01-04T21:43:20","date_gmt":"2018-01-04T21:43:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/biol2103h\/?p=1401"},"modified":"2018-01-04T21:43:20","modified_gmt":"2018-01-04T21:43:20","slug":"introduction-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/biol2103h\/introduction-5\/","title":{"rendered":"Introduction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m Sahir, a sophomore doing computer science as his major. I&#8217;ve always enjoyed science as a topic. My earliest interest in science started when I was only six or seven years old, starting with a fascination with outer space. One of my earliest memories from that age was hearing about Pluto&#8217;s declassification as a planet \u2014 something that I remember really bothered me at the time! My mom is a doctor, so I guess I should be inclined to be a doctor as well. However, I&#8217;ve seen the amount of effort she has to put into her work, and given how much of the medical profession seems to be testing and bookkeeping, I firmly decided long ago that I was\u00a0<em>not\u00a0<\/em>going to be a doctor.<\/p>\n<p>In school, I always enjoyed our science classes. Up until ninth grade, we had general science classes (except perhaps Life Science in seventh grade), but in high school we had more specific subjects. I took biology as a freshman, physical science as a sophomore, chemistry and human anatomy as a junior, and AP Biology as a senior. Out of all of them, I enjoyed chemistry and the early stages of biology the most. I say &#8220;early stages of biology&#8221; because in our biology classes, my favorite parts of biology (cellular biology, genetics, and evolution) were covered at the beginning of the semester. I have mixed feelings about ecology and a particular dislike for plant biology \u2014 the latter because I feel like plant biology always ends up being a long discussion about pine cones and tree trunks, which feel like low points compared to viruses and DNA.<\/p>\n<p>In all honesty, I wasn&#8217;t sure what I expected to get out of this course when I walked in about an hour ago. It felt like I was simply fulfilling one of my degree requirements, walking in because I <em>have\u00a0<\/em>to\u00a0\u2014 and hey, as long as we weren&#8217;t spending the entire semester talking about legumes, I might just enjoy myself. But after being introduced to what we&#8217;re\u00a0<em>actually\u00a0<\/em>doing, I think this class is going to be a lot more enjoyable than I initially thought. I like that it&#8217;s going to be interactive and doesn&#8217;t look like it revolves entirely around reading and note-taking. So I suppose what I hope to get out of this course is everything it can offer, for me to involve myself in it fully and have some fun with biology on a more active level.<\/p>\n<p>As far as composting is concerned, I think what I&#8217;d like to learn more about is how the green bins work, and how composting can be incorporated in a community&#8217;s culture. My parents live in Phoenix and have a green bin there, but their bin is for recycling plastic bottles and paper \u2014 which is what I always thought the green bin was for! In Reed Hall, we have a recycling bin for cardboard and paper, but there&#8217;s a notice above it specifically asking students to throw food items into the catch-all trash can. Should we perhaps be looking to correct that, so that students are also encouraged to compost? That could make a huge difference, especially in the big dorms like Russell and Creswell Halls.<\/p>\n<p>I think this topic could also apply to my classmates, as I&#8217;m sure that most people would be much more interested in recycling, composting, and generally\u00a0<em>going green<\/em> if it were made easily accessible. What if there was a compost bin in the Bulldog Caf\u00e9, and people could throw out their food waste and their cardboard and paper separately? I&#8217;m sure that would make a big difference.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve sometimes considered doing something politically related as a career option. If I ever\u00a0<em>do\u00a0<\/em>do something like that, I&#8217;m sure that I would have a strong position on the environment and on being eco-friendly in general. I hope that when we do our outreach, \u00a0I can learn a lot about\u00a0<em>explaining<\/em> why we need to be more environmentally conscious.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m Sahir, a sophomore doing computer science as his major. I&#8217;ve always enjoyed science as a topic. My earliest interest in science started when I was only six or seven years old, starting with a fascination with outer space. One of my earliest memories from that age was hearing about Pluto&#8217;s declassification as a planet &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/biol2103h\/introduction-5\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Introduction<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2753,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[100],"class_list":["post-1401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-introductions","tag-sahir-shahryar"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/biol2103h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/biol2103h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/biol2103h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/biol2103h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2753"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/biol2103h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/biol2103h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1401\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/biol2103h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/biol2103h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/biol2103h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}