This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at UCD chapter.
I didn’t always love learning. Not when it came with back-to-back deadlines, Canvas notifications that never stopped and midterms that felt like they arrived before the quarter even started. Not when I skipped meals to catch up, or when I gave everything I had and still came up short.
But this year, my sophomore year, something shifted. This year was the first time I got to take classes that were related to my major, not just filling up pre-reqs. I was learning things that felt interesting and connected to the kind of work I hope to do in the future. These classes weren’t always easy; some of them were the hardest I’ve taken so far, but they challenged me in the best ways. They made me think differently, study differently and ask better questions.
I started doing research, too, and it changed the way I viewed science. It shifted science from something I learned about to something I did. There was something powerful about stepping beyond the classroom and being trusted with real data and real questions. It made everything seem more alive. The classroom gave me the language, but the lab gave me the experience. I fell in love with the way science explains life; not just in theory, but in practice.
I remember standing in my lab as I watched my grad student teach me how to extract DNA from a gel. The strands of DNA glowed brightly under UV light, and were carefully extracted and prepared for further analysis. It was such a small moment, but something about it felt so surreal. I have read about DNA a million times since middle school, but actually working with it made the science come alive, in a way no lecture slide ever could.
Sophomore year didn’t just give me classes; it gave me direction. It wasn’t just courses I had to take — they were classes I wanted to take. It reminded me why I chose this major, why I care about science, and why learning is something I love.
I’ve learned that loving learning doesn’t mean always enjoying the process. Sometimes it’s late-night studying, failed experiments and tough exams. But it also means finding moments of wonder in the middle of it all. It means learning to stay curious even when things don’t go perfectly. It means asking, “why,” and, “how,” and, “what next,” not just because it’s on the syllabus, but because you want to know.
As I close out my sophomore year, I feel like I have found something I care about enough to stay curious, even when it’s hard. I’ve realized that biology doesn’t just live in textbooks — it lives in the world around us. And now, I find myself genuinely excited to register for classes for my junior year. I can’t wait to go even deeper, to take on more advanced topics and to keep building on everything I started this year.