intro to paper

Erik Bowman is my oldest brother, 22 years old, and attends the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. Ever since he was in high school, he was extremely interested in science. I was only in middle school at this time and had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up. My brother was fascinated by science and this caused me to be curious as to what he was so interested in. Erik's two favorite subjects were chemistry and biology. He had his mind set on becoming a doctor. In high school, he joined HOSA and ended up winning the national championship in medicine. His success only made me push myself harder. My freshman year in high school, I found out that the love for science runs in the family. I took Biology I Honors my freshman year and passed with flying colors. Not only did the subject interest me, I was good at it too. However, I never really developed tolerance for chemistry because I only liked it when I got the answer right.

Towards the end of my junior year, I forced myself to construct a plan for myself so that I could figure out what I wanted to do in life. I began researching many different occupations to see what major was required in college. I looked at the usual lawyer, teacher, and doctor requirements but nothing seemed to click. One day, my friends and I were talking about how I only think a girl is cute if she has nice teeth. It was my first impression. It was not until my friends Zach said "man you should be a dentist, your way too concerned with your teeth and everyone else." He made a good point. I was always the kid that had to bring his tooth brush if I was spending the night somewhere. I could not stand for my teeth to feel or look nasty. I did some research on the requirements for professional field of dentistry. Amazingly, biology and chemistry were the two most commonly accepted majors into dental school.

When I was registering for classes, my advisor persuaded me to join the Biological Origins learning community. The idea sounded good at the time so I went for it. The learning community brought me into Mrs. Sumner-Winter's English 1010. In class, we were constructed to choose from three topics: human tissue as property, DNA databases, and designer babies. I found out that biology was not only about the larger organism we see everyday. Biology has three main "columns": cell biology, genetics, and evolution. Out of the three, I was more interested in genetics and how it worked so I picked designer babies. I also picked designer babies because it seemed interesting how far people would go to get what they wanted. Scientists were willing to pick apart genes and stick the desired genes in. I found it hard to believe that we could even do that. I became interested in the process although I thought it would ultimately eliminate originality.