I am double majoring in Marketing and Professional Writing so when I got to college I had very little interest in taking any science classes. However, I didn’t take any AP science courses and am required to take science classes for both Miami plan and the College of Arts and Science. Science has consistently been my least favorite class and I was not looking forward to having to take any science at Miami. I wanted to take an easier class and couldn’t decide what science would be easy for me. I talked to my older sister who, keep in mind is a public health major, about what to take and she suggested MBI 131. It also just happened to work out that this course was offered as an honors course which I needed for my honors requirements.
MBI stands for Microbiology which initially turned me off from taking it. I was never great at biology when I took it in high school and was extremely hesitant to take a class that seemed as though it would be harder than normal biology. The class is called Community Health Perspectives which threw me off because it wasn’t what I knew biology to be. My sister told me she thought it would be a good fit for me because it is more humanities-based than it is science-based. I decided to sign up for it because it sounded interesting and I needed to fill my science credits some way or another.
MBI 131 ended up being one of my favorite classes last semester. We learned about public health policies such as the Affordable Care Act and different public health entities like Planned Parenthood. We learned about epidemiology which is the study of the spread of diseases. Each class I learned something extremely interesting and never once regretted taking the class. I also loved my professor and as an honors class, it was never an overwhelming amount of work. The class was also heavily discussion based and everyone in my class participated and we had some very insightful discussions. We had a few projects, one of which we had to talk to someone that has a job in public health, whether that be a doctor or someone who works in public sanitation. I got to interview my mom because she is a family physician and it was interesting to talk with her about the topics we had learned in class and get her opinions on them. We also got to choose a public health issue and do some research about it and write a paper on our thoughts and possible solutions to it. I chose to discuss the heroin epidemic which is a prevalent issue in areas very close to where I live.
Overall, I 100% recommend this class to anyone who is daunted by the idea of taking science classes in college. I have never been strong at science and excelled in this course. I even recommend taking the class if you love science or don’t need to fulfill any science courses here at Miami. I think there’s a lot to be learned from the class about health and think anyone who takes it will enjoy it.