As a first semester freshman I had no idea what to expect of this class or any other really. I took mostly electives and I will say this class probably had the most work involved, but it didn’t even seem like work at all compared to other classes. The professor did a wonderful job at taking the material and making it entertaining and thought provoking. I could see how the same class could have been much more boring with a different teaching style.
I was going back through my notes to try and find one area or topic that I enjoyed the most but I cant really pinpoint one thing. All the information in conjunction with each other made everything learned that much better. By starting off with health then transitioning into science and ending with our environment, it was all extremely valuable knowledge that I now have to improve my life and others to live in a better tomorrow.
Education today is taught through textbooks; we’re given letters and numbers as an external motivator, which destroys any meaningful internal motivation that drives us towards a life long love of learning. There are no true-life skills taught it’s all strict facts that require rote memorization for an easy testing formula. This is truer for high school then college but there’s still many college classes that aren’t very beneficial to a student looking to grow as person and can even be detrimental just on how they’re taught. I hope to find more classes like so because I can see a real intention behind this one. It’s helped me further my learning, question my everyday life, and to recognize problems that are occurring now; something we don’t see a lot in today’s society.
Overall my view on communication has changed dramatically and I’ve realized how needed it is. Something has to be done soon to get the public involved with science and just learning in general or else humanity is going down a very unwanted path. This class has given me a wonderful starting point with a great base of information to go off of when learning more about these areas and eventually spreading it. Also instead of teaching us what to think this class has taught us how to think and words can’t describe how appreciative I am of this.
– Jaiden Deal
Communicating Health, Science and the Environment 