Friday, January 2, 2015
Thursday, January 1, 2015
What exactly is a student of science?
Back in May 2013, I started the Tumblr blog Science, to a Student. My initial thought when I created that title was to symbolize what science is to this particular biology student (myself). The blog itself was nothing more than a home for all things relating to science, authored by yours truly (and because of that author, there is a strong emphasis on dinosaurs and paleontology--my intended career).
As Tumblr is largely a photo-based reblog system (or at least that's how it got its start), much of my blog is indeed photos and other images, but as time has progressed the content has become more diversified, highlighting not only photos and other people's posts, but paleontology articles, science news, local science events, and my own writing.
It is now my intent to use this blog as a platform for my science-related writing. My first blog will continue running, and both will often have some very different content, and perhaps sometimes they will even share content.
That said, in recent months I have returned to the concept of a student, and what that actually means. I am going to college now, yes, and that is the most direct meaning of student: a person who attends classes as a means to obtain an academic degree. But there's more to being a student. Being a student, in the most proper way, is to be a student of life, for life. It isn't a status in life so much as it is a way to experience life. Allow me to elaborate.
To be a student is so much more than lectures, textbooks, and exams. To be a student of life, of nature, and of the universe, is what it really means to be a student. If you find yourself reading this, you likely are already a student in experience rather than a mere student academically. How you approach everything in life, from cooking your dinner to taking a hike can all be done in the manner of a student.
To search for knowledge, to reach for understanding, and to grasp for wisdom is the way of the student. A student of science uses their albeit rather inadequate brain to attempt to understand the laws of the universe. From the way a dinosaur lived, died, and was buried and fossilized, to the way an insect evolves to mimic a twig or a leaf, from the way incredible geologic forces create mountains, oceans, deserts and valleys, to the reasons why a star burns so bright--to try to understand these things is what it means to be a student. At least to me.
Welcome to my attempts to view natural history, life, the world, and the universe from the eyes of a student. Please join me on my journey. We can all be students, together, and make a better world of it for being so.
As Tumblr is largely a photo-based reblog system (or at least that's how it got its start), much of my blog is indeed photos and other images, but as time has progressed the content has become more diversified, highlighting not only photos and other people's posts, but paleontology articles, science news, local science events, and my own writing.
It is now my intent to use this blog as a platform for my science-related writing. My first blog will continue running, and both will often have some very different content, and perhaps sometimes they will even share content.
That said, in recent months I have returned to the concept of a student, and what that actually means. I am going to college now, yes, and that is the most direct meaning of student: a person who attends classes as a means to obtain an academic degree. But there's more to being a student. Being a student, in the most proper way, is to be a student of life, for life. It isn't a status in life so much as it is a way to experience life. Allow me to elaborate.
To be a student is so much more than lectures, textbooks, and exams. To be a student of life, of nature, and of the universe, is what it really means to be a student. If you find yourself reading this, you likely are already a student in experience rather than a mere student academically. How you approach everything in life, from cooking your dinner to taking a hike can all be done in the manner of a student.
To search for knowledge, to reach for understanding, and to grasp for wisdom is the way of the student. A student of science uses their albeit rather inadequate brain to attempt to understand the laws of the universe. From the way a dinosaur lived, died, and was buried and fossilized, to the way an insect evolves to mimic a twig or a leaf, from the way incredible geologic forces create mountains, oceans, deserts and valleys, to the reasons why a star burns so bright--to try to understand these things is what it means to be a student. At least to me.
Welcome to my attempts to view natural history, life, the world, and the universe from the eyes of a student. Please join me on my journey. We can all be students, together, and make a better world of it for being so.
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