Over this semester, I have been able to deepen my knowledge in STEM thanks to the founding pillars of the SMART program. The first of these essential SMART concepts I will reflect on is this program’s emphasis on connecting each course: calculus, biology, and chemistry. Initially, I found using all three of these different disciplines at once to be intimidating, but once in practice, it just intensified my love for all of STEM. As we did labs in our science classes, we would then further analyze the data collected in calculus. In fact, my group even used a histogram we created in calculus on our end-of-the-year biology research poster.

Furthermore, connecting these different fields allowed me to see the relevance of what we have learned outside of the classroom. In biology, we did a lab testing different bacteria growth at different temperatures. The next day, in calculus, we took our data and used logarithms to find the bacterial growth rate to compute the bacterial doubling time (Lab1). Overall, this gave our biology lab more meaning. Using math and science in practice with one another allowed us to see the practical use of our knowledge and to feel more like real scientists.

One aspect of this class I rather enjoyed was the community learning. Lectures were rarely stagnant. We would learn a concept and then, by the end of the class, turn around and solve similar problems. Each practice problem would also be solved on the board by students. Then Dr. Torres would go over the examples. The beauty of this if you were stuck on a problem you could look to your right and watch a peer’s process to help you get back on track. Furthermore, getting the problem right was never the point of this; rather, it provided us with immediate feedback on our understanding. I was a frequenter on the board. I loved getting up and trying my best to figure them out. I found this practice the most beneficial when I would get the problem wrong because most of the time I had no idea I had something confused. It would answer my questions before I could even think of them. 

Additionally, my lab group and I were good at delegating Melvin, a future computer science major, knows his way around those commands. He and Matt would work on transcribing the data into graphs and then Gopika and I would translate the quantitative data into more qualitative. This is not to say our parts never mixed; rather, throughout the whole lab process, we would constantly be asking each other questions for clarification. Now, because of my group, I can somewhat confidently say that I understand some Excel (which is quite an improvement to my previous utter lack of knowledge).

Throughout this semester, I did my labs and classwork with the same people. This allowed us to get pretty close and understand one another’s academic strengths and weaknesses pretty well. My main partner throughout this semester sometimes struggled with calculus. Although a little frustrating at times, I mean no ill will when I say I had to take the lead when it came to labs and team quizzes. We would both try to solve the problem individually. Then we would confer. If there was anything either of us did not fully grasp, we would try and teach one another before copying the solutions onto the paper. She gave me the opportunity to explain the concepts at hand. It is one thing to copy the orders of operations of solving an integral, but it takes a deeper understanding to express how and why the math is done. She challenged my patience at times, I must admit, but overall I learned a lot with her.

Another struggle my group and I faced this semester was lab three. The goal of this lab was to analyze the amount of Nalidixic acid-resistant bacteria developed after different increments of UV light exposure. Typically, my group is really good at problem-solving, but this lab was not our brightest moment. Our first obstacle was the data we collected in our biology lab prior was a mess. In our serial dilutions, we resulted in total lawns which were totally useless, and the data collected at the different exposure times were inappropriately skewed. There was definitely something that must have gone wrong in our biology lab. After my group’s initial attempt to complete the calculus lab, we were all extremely confused. I am disappointed to say that in the face of this adversity, we decided to give up. We justified this choice by looking at our learning target calculus. We made the assumption we could just replace it with a future lab. It was not until the end of this semester we realized we made a grave mistake, that lab was a necessity for our grade. Thankfully, Dr. Torres granted us grace and granted us another chance. After painstaking time trying to re-understand this lab, we were able to complete it. I learned a valuable lesson from this experience. I learned to never assume the importance/unimportance of an assignment and to ask for help when things get difficult.

Coming into SMART, I would have liked to think I had a growth mindset, but I can see it was more focused on perfection. I have always been someone who tries their best. When I would hit a roadblock, I was already looking into alternative routes. Now, this mindset is not inherently bad. I was able to be successful most of the time; however, whenever I inevitably failed at something, I would feel worthless. 

For example, ever since high school, limits have been my number one mathematical enemy. They are so simple and fundamental in upper-level math, but for whatever reason, I could just not understand them. It would frustrate me so much, for I was so embarrassed everyone in my class seemed to understand right away. The one time I worked up the courage to ask for help, my teacher’s explanation did not help in the slightest, so I decided from there on out I was a lost cause. Limits and I would forever be enemies. This year, coming into calculus, I knew I was going to have to face my nemesis again. My initial reaction was to adopt the attitude: I survived pre-calc and calculus without understanding limits, and I can do it again; however, after completing our first journal entry, I decided to change my viewpoint. With the fear of a low grade out of the way, I was going to focus just on my understanding of each concept. I was not going to get wrapped up in the impossibility of limits in the past. Instead, I swept the score clean. Yes, of course, in my new pursuit of knowledge, I got some limit questions wrong, but I was able to understand that is the learning process. Instead of holding my mistakes over myself, I developed the humility to ask the same questions until comprehension is achieved. Today, I am proud to say that I can do limits.