Why Science?

Hey guys. It's Melanie. You might know me as @sciencey_melly on TikTok, or as @mellyyyyyyyy__ on Instagram, or you might not even know me at all. In that case, hello! It's nice to officially make your acquaintance!

Whether you know me or not, I'm a science communicator who posts fun, educational videos on the Internet. My whole goal with posting my science content is to give people the scientific education that they might not have the money to receive through higher education. Basically, academia is elitist and I want to be a rebel and mitigate the casualties.

Now, of course there is a multitude of fields in the world of academia, so you're probably looking at me and wondering "why science?". And you know what? I completely understand that question. "Why science?" I mean, there are so many other fields that seem more creative and fun, like design, film, journalism, education, or fine arts. However, while science has the reputation of being strictly facts and figures, it is actually so much more visionary-oriented than you expect.

To get the idea, the biggest thing to remember about science is that it is always evolving. There are publications that are constantly getting proven and then disproven, and it's all because of this overall goal to move closer to the truth. Now, yes, there are "scientists" who don't care about the actual truth, and just want to see their names in publications. However, the large majority are simply attempting to find the answers to the universe's most intriguing aspects.

Once you take into account that science is always in a state of change, this is when the fun part comes in. One of the biggest parts of science, specifically in scientific research, is the infinite amount of possibilities with potential findings. There's a reason your scientific method will always begin with a hypothesis: your hypothesis may seem like a common sense statement that you want to experiment to determine that it might be true, but it also might be, to your surprise, completely false, and steer you into a direction you never thought existed. Now that I think back on it, my personal journey with getting into science resembles the scientific method in a way:

When I was in high school, I originally wanted to go to college to study music education. I was an avid band kid who lived for music notes and what I could make with them. However, my sophomore year, I got into a junior-senior level OnRamps Geoscience course. This course, as well as the teacher who taught it (gotta love Ms. Mathews), completely changed my life. I learned all about metamorphic, sedimentary, and igneous rocks, the law of superposition, the acidification of oceans, aquifers, and how human activities directly and indirectly affect the planet. It was fascinating. This class finally allowed me to get answers to questions I had been asking for years, and with questions that it couldn't answer, I was given the tools to find the answer myself. I was even inspired to dip my toe into engineering, as there are a lot of environmental issues that would greatly improve with new technology. For example, at one point, I wanted to build a desalination pump that took ocean water and turned it into fresh water for human use by replicating the desalination processes of seagrass.

Overall, the world of science broadened my horizons to a great extent. It made me realize that I had the ability to change the course of environmental issues. All I had to do was study and teach myself how to go about these new goals. Now, I use my platform to inspire others to do the same. The science field has this ability to show you just how small you are in the universe, but it also has this wonderful ability to show you how largely your actions can impact the course of our time in that universe.

Now, I've shared my short-story on how I got into this field, and I would like to leave you, the reader, with some advice so you can do the same:

1. Always ask questions. They might feel stupid or judgement-worthy, sometimes, but they are not. In the world of science, sometimes it takes asking the most obvious questions to figure out the most interesting solutions.

2. Accept that you will sometimes feel like the dumbest person in the world. Science fields are swamped with a plethora of extremely intelligent individuals, some of whom can talk circles around you about protein complexes, intermolecular forces, or whatever other scientific finding they are interested in. It is ok to not know what is going on. Simply accept that your brain is not computing a single morsel of information, and then go research it afterwards. Feeling stupid is all a part of the STEM experience.

3. When things feels like they are at a standstill, take a break. I have been in many research settings where my project just felt like it was going nowhere, and I would get so frustrated with it. In these moments of stagnation, take a step back and breathe. Go to dinner with some friends or go on a walk and take your mind off of it. Sometimes, you need to stop thinking so hard, and those are oftentimes the moments when you figure out the answer and get yourself out of the funk.

Well, I hope that this article helps you, and I hope you enjoyed the first blog post of what I feel like will be many. In future blog posts, I will be going more in-depth on different scientific findings, hyperfixations, and even some scientific basics. So, see you next time!