When kids are growing up, one of the most asked questions by peers, teachers, parents and friends is "what do you want to be when you grow up?" Looking back, it is such a specific question. Did all of these people really expect me to know what I was talking about. It was really a silly question, simply asked to see how much the child knew about the world and what they're interested in. But when most students reach high school, they are expected to at least have an idea of what they want to study when they are older. Not necessarily a career, but a field or interest that can further be pursued. Ever since I was a seven-year-old sitting in my second grade class, my answer has been the same: I want to be a doctor.
As I've gotten older and learned more about the field and career options there, the appeal for medicine has grown. For me, it as equally if not more important that before we start trying to improve the world around us, we need to learn more about ourselves and how we function. As a doctor, you can start by helping people on a personal level; by saving lives, you can make connections with patients and families and be sure that you will have made a difference in their lives forever. On an academic level, science has always drawn my attention, especially anatomy and biology. The very roots of life and how they work will always be relevant, no matter where you are, when it is, and what you're studying. It is fascinating to me how little we know about the very thing that keeps us alive: our own bodies. Sure, our understanding of basic function has increased, but there is still so much more that we are just beginning to grasp. I want to go out there and learn everything there is to learn about how we work, what keeps us alive, and how we can keep improving life for the next generation. For more information on things that we still have yet to understand about medicine, ABC News posted a story regarding still-standing medical mysteries. Comments are a way of expressing one's opinions on the works posted on the internet. I commented on the NY Student Blog page "How Much Control Do You Have Over Your Fate?", as well as on Jordan's blog about her incest research. In order to make more observations about internet comments, I went to the music video of a very controversial music video and song, "Same Love", by Macklemore. I chose this because I knew the opinions on this video would probably range from flaming liberal tolerance to religious, biblical anti-homosexual comments. This was also something in which opinions tend to be very definitive, sensitive, but also ignorant to everyone else. While reading the comments, I noticed that there were people who completely supported the cause of the video with words such as "I still get chills when I watch this video and hear this song. I'm glad that I have lived long enough to see something like this happen. Equality to all human beings", but also more raging ones such as "gays going to hell". The diverging opinions caused many fights between users. However hard it was to watch, comments are a way of expressing our thoughts and I don't think they should be changed.
*NONE OF THE COMMENTS EXPRESSED IN THIS POST ARE AT ALL RELATED TO MY OWN* To me, the idea of having an internet footprint is slightly terrifying, but one that everybody must come to accept in our ever-changing technological society. Of course, it is frightening that someone could potentially find out things about me with the mere click of a mouse, however this makes me no different than most of my classmates, teachers, and peers. With the nearly entire dependency we have constructed for the internet makes the abundance of information it supplies not so unusual after all; it's just a fact of life. With this being said I thing that we need to be careful about what we say on the internet. If the internet is so openly and commonly being used to learn something about people whom you have never met, it only makes sense that what comes up on the internet when you Google someone should be designed to make an optimal first impression. When I googled myself and specified the search to find my correct identity, this is one of the links I found. This did not bother me because it is only a positive article mentioning one of my swimming achievements that I am quite proud of. None of my social networking pages came up.
In response to the 3 articles: "College Prospects are Being Watched on Facebook and Twitter" and "37 Percent Of Employers Use Facebook To Pre-Screen Applicants" and "This is How a Woman's Offensive Tweet Became the World's Top Story", I am not completely surprised. When it comes to the lady who made the very offensive tweet about Africa and AIDS, I am going to refer back to what I mentioned earlier about being careful about first impressions. Also, people tend to forget that even though you can delete things, they will ALWAYS be there on the internet. The second someone retweets, shares, screenshots, or in any way saves what you have said, it is out of your hands as to what will happen to it and who will see it in the future. This also applies to the job applications and coaches recruiting. If what you post on the internet it the image of yourself you are posing for everyone to see, then that's what EVERYONE is going to see; even if you don't want them too. This word cloud is how I hope people would see me if they could see everything about me through the internet: |