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Biology and education are both firsts for me. Having never taken a class during college in either of those subjects, I was a little nervous at first. But after our initial class discussion, I have high hopes for the kinds of questions we're going to explore in this course. I have taken a few classes that use "brain drain" exercises as ice breakers and once again I've been pleasantly surprised by the responses and conversation that followed. There were many things I found striking about our conversation. Whether is was the idea of education v. experience, the emphasis on higher education in the U.S., or the feeling of powerlessness within ones own education, there were many insights and opinions I look forward to hearing more of.

One comment, in particular, that I found interesting was towards the end of class when someone mentioned the social and economic implications of getting a good education (and who's to say what makes a "good" education? but I guess that's another discussion...) . The idea of systemic repression and how "you don't get your education, you're education gets you" is intriguing and maybe it's because I love sociology, but I would love to dive more into the "sociology of education" while still not going too off topic.

What is education anyways? I feel like we never really came to a class consensus. Do we as citizens need to look at social changes before we look at educational changes? What is truly wrong about the education system and what is working? I hope we can further explore these questions at some point soon.