Starting in kindergarten to now in college I’ve learned lessons. In first grade I learned cursive. In fourth and fifth grade I learned my addition, subtraction, multiplication and division facts. In high school I learned the molecular orbital theory in chemistry. In college I’ve learned so far that you never stop learning. In my general classes during my freshman year of college, I learned more about the topics that I already had some knowledge about. I had already been taught the basic concepts, but I was able to grow on those concepts.
My job this summer is helping the Catapult students with their projects in the biology lab. I’ve taught them basic lab techniques and safety along with other advanced lab procedures. These students are going to be seniors in college. They are at the point where they are thinking about where they want to go and what they want to do. Even though I’ve only been working with them for almost a week, I’ve learned so much.
This camp is for them to learn about the topics that interest them and to have a good time. My job as a worker is to help them with anything I can, but to also enjoy the time as well. There have been multiple times where I sit and have conversations with them about college and life. They ask the basic questions I asked when I was deciding where to go. Some of them have these big ideas of wanting to go to med school or to go get a PhD and opening their own lab possibly.
Listening to all of their dreams and ideas just made me smile. It’s easy to turn down dreams and to give up so easy. They made me realize that it’s important to follow what you want until there’s a 100 percent chance that it won’t work. A specific conversation I had with one of them was about how heavy my workload is. He also asked what I wanted to do when I graduate. We talked for a good 10 minutes about what we were both interested in, which happened to be some of the same things. The look on his face when he was talking about those things he was interested in was just great to see.
Only being with them for a week has felt like a few weeks. Even when I start to give them advice about something they could do better or do a different way, they really listen and also ask questions about why something is the way it is or how it happened. I can tell that they are always willing to learn about something new, especially from someone like me that is close to their age and knows what they are doing. I’ve already learned that it is okay to have big dreams, you should always ask questions, be patient, and most importantly to enjoy what you’re doing.
Even though some of the procedures are unlike anything they have done, they do it as well as they can no matter what. I may be older than all of them, but they continue to teach me something new every day just like I am teaching them. Just having a conversation with someone you just met or someone who has similar interests as you can open up your mind to new things. Always being open-minded can open up new opportunities to learn new things every day.
