Ever since junior high when my parents started asking me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I knew that my parents were supportive of my decisions, but also that there was an answer to the question that I knew would make them happy: something related to science. My parents both studied science in college, they both attended the Illinois Institute of Technology as foreign students coming from China on a visa, they both received advanced degrees in chemistry, and they both worked at pharmaceutical companies their whole lives doing.....you guessed it, science. So they knew that science was a reliable field to go into and had plenty of practical application. I agreed with them then and I still agree now: science is a great route to go into for anyone.......if you're good at it.
I liked biology as a freshman in high school, memorized ATGC as adenine, thyamine, guaraine, and cytosine, discovered meoisis and mitosis, memorized the parts of animal cells and plant cells, and actually quite enjoyed myself, as much as a freshman in high school who's at the bottom of the social ladder with glasses and acne and chess team participant can. Chemistry and physics were harder for me, however, and whether or not it was that the teachers weren't great (they didn't have a great attitude towards teaching when I struggled) or I just wasn't into it like I was into English literature or European history (the other classes I was taking at the time) I just never got into chemistry nor physics, and resolved right then and there not to go into either of those fields. I wonder what would have happened if I had a different teacher, had a more engaging curriculum, applied myself more to those classes, whether it'd all be different, but I don't think so: I didn't do well in computer science neither, much more related to chemistry and physics than social studies. I finally realized why: I like facts and memorizable things, easy chunks of knowledge to know and associations, which is why I like history, presients, state capitals, geographic locations, etc. It explains why I still sort of liked biology, with so many body parts to learn, anatomy, animals, living things, and even some history of Watson and Crick, evolution, etc., etc. Even on Jeopardy and other tv shows I find myself liking the science categories like outer space exploration (learned about the Gemini and Apollo missions), body parts like the fibula and the tibula, diseases like Ricket's disease or bones breaking like greenstick fractures, and even like the Table of Element questions.....I could look at the Table of elements all day and try to memorize it.
In short, I had a Ken Jennings- like affinity for knowing just a bit about a lot of different things, but not in depth about how things worked, like explaining how a computer is structured, or deciphering and/or creating my own computer code. I was more fit for Scholastic Bowl, not Science Olympiad. It wasn't that I wasn't curious, like my parents diagnosed, but that I didn't understand the deeper nuances of science and the processes, and because it was frustrating not getting it while others did (my friend liked building bridges in his free time- he's now a mechanical engineer) I naturally tended towards things I DID understand, like history and the various casts of characters and conflict in true events and fiction (literature). It helps me feel better about my Achilles Heel on the ACT testing, where I would routinely do well on math and verbal sections but struggle mightily on the science sections, where there would be questions about conducting experiments and variables and process questions.
Knowing I have a weakness in science, I've checked out some books from the library: encyclopedias about science and nature from DK, Bill Nye, National Geographic, etc. They're great books, and get me engaged with pictures and captions. I just couldn't handle all the nitty-gritty of chemical formulas and physicas equations. I even checked out the amazing true story of NASA's female human calculators: Hidden Figures, by Shetterly, starring African American math geniuses Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, and Dorothy Vaughan, who explained things to NASA engineers. Wow!
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