In my experience, there is a certain combination of factors that make a class interesting for a student. The instructor's knowledge and enthusiasm towards the subject are important, as well as the ability to transcribe that information for the students in a comprehensible way. However, what I think to be the most important factor is the studentŐs affinity for the subject matter, their overall interest in what is being taught. In the case of ELT, I felt genuinely lucky to be taking the class. ELT gave me a broad perspective on the natural sciences and helped push me towards other areas of scientific interest that differs from my major of biology.
I entered the University of Maryland as freshman less than a year and half ago eager to fill my brain. Fill it with what? I did not know, but I knew I was going in with a declared major in cell biology and genetics, topics which I found interesting, but knew hardly anything about. I did not even select Earth Life and Time on my own, it was selected for me and all I had to do was read the letter that read something like 'Congratulations! You have been selected for the College Park Scholars Earth Life and Time Program!' I had no judgments or expectations from the start, I looked at it like any other course I was eventually going to have to take.
My first semester started rolling like most other life science majors, with a healthy dose of general chemistry and principles of biology. However, my experience was somewhat unique for I was also beginning to learn about the foundations of the scientific method and the booby traps of pseudoscience. From the first lecture, the first portion of ELT's mantra, 'the nature of science and the science of nature' captivated me. It was not regurgitation or a new specificity of a previously known fact, it was truly new to me. It was exciting those first few lecture, in all honesty it really was.
The Logic of Science and the Scientific Method and Recognizing Good, Bad and Pseudoscience are the two biggest lectures that stand out from first semester. The methodical specifics of science was unknown to me before this lecture. It was as if the image of why we as humans know so much about the natural world came into sharper focus. I felt as if I was 'enlightened' to the true scientific method beyond what I have learned in grade school about hypothesis, controls and theories. Simultaneously I was learning about the misuse of the word 'theory' in my Principles of Biology II class (BSCI106). Together, all of this new information was an eye opener. It affirmed my passion for my major as well as opened brand new doors into dimensions of curiosity I had never yet experienced.
I especially held fondness for the concept of deep time when we first encountered the term. For years I had pondered over the humans brain's ability to comprehend the concept of a time scale beyond their own lifetime by a factor of many orders of magnitude. ItŐs difficult to imagine several thousand years, as history requires us to, even more so to imagine several million years as is required by evolutionary biologist, and close to impossible to fathom billions of years that geologists must incorporate into their critical thinking. ELT helped illustrate that deep time is essential in understanding the gradual incremental improvements of evolution. It may be difficult to imagine what an enormous period of time would be like, but it is integral in building a bigger, more precise picture of the history of life on planet Earth.
Second semester moving into evolutionary biology was a come down from the new information from the first semester. Many of us had learned in details supplied by a number of classes like Principles of Biology II and III (BSCI222), a thorough understanding of natural selection. The concepts of genetic drift, genetic linkage, and pleiotropy form the Mechanisms of Evolution were new and interesting personally.
Third semester was a whirlwind of classes, projects and exams. ELT was in their somewhere but it is hard to pick it out. The defining lecture from the final semester was Dr. Merck's Science-A Shield Against Tyranny talk. I felt that the final lecture we received from Dr. Merck tied the ELT scientific introspection full circle. As a conscious species, we developed science to answer questions about our universe to free ourselves from myth and fabrication. Today we are continuing to pioneer introspection into the natural world but we are threatened by junk science, pathological science, and everything in between. Science builds stories around evidence, not hunches, ancient myths, or personal hunches. The lack of a scientific mentally leads to totalitarian empires with a main imperative set on keeping the public ignorant.
Many of the friends that have carried over from my freshman year to now are my ELT classmates. Living down the hall or a flight of stairs away from my classmates helped build our relationships on a personal level as well as within the classroom. I am currently working in a lab for my scholars colloquium with a fellow ELTer who lived on my dormitory floor last year. We are dissecting cycads, a tropical dwelling plant, to locate its meristem for scanning electron microscopy. We are working on an established research project to actively advance the knowledge of this plant. My colleague obtained this opportunity through his scholars colloquium and his advisers brought me on board to complete my required research. So, by only a few degrees, ELT is the reason I am working on such a project.
Although others may have felt burdened by the scholars program, I have had an enjoyable experience with Earth Life and Time. The majority of the lectures caught my interest and provided me with a new perspective on science. Scholars did not contradict a disposition or belief that I held before hand, it for the most part reinforced my innate wonder of the universe. I was challenged to keep a watchful eye for pseudoscience where it my lurk. A main point I will remember from ELT is that the word 'science' is misused widely and manipulated by people to further endeavors that hold no scientific backing at all.
Evolutionary biology has been a favorite subject area of late, largely in part do to Earth Life and Time. ELT compounded by classes in biology and yes, even math and organic chemistry, have strung together concepts and ideas that would have remained partitioned in their own camps if it were not for the collective perspective of these ideas. I will have continued interest in biology, particularly evolution in my years to come as a student. ELT has helped build my desire to contribute to the scientific field. From graduate school through my career, it will be difficult to forget about the lessons of ELT.