Connections Across Disciplines

In response to exercise #4 on page 22 in Writing About Cool, by Jeff Rice, it should be noted that I am taking 5 classes. I am taking a Biochemistry, Physics, Bacteriology, Environmental Studies, and English class this semester. As the exercise requires ideas, words, or concepts between the classes that have come up in them, I found it very difficult to find good examples that cross the Science-English barrier, while many concepts are shared between one or all of the science courses I’m taking.

The best example I could think of are the words culture and media. In our class, we discuss culture as a way of life and media in terms of ways to express information. Primarily used in my bacteriology course, culture refers to growing bacterial cultures in a laboratory setting, although media can refer to a collection of information which is found in these cultures, so a similar definition.

Another example I thought of is the word hormones, which is used most often in my biochemistry class as far as potent biological signaling molecules. It is also used in this nature in my bacteriology course, and was discussed as a potential water pollutant in my Environment course. A system similar to hormones is neurotransmitters, which was discussed in physics in terms of the magnetic fields it creates in our brains. I do not think the word has ever come up in our class, but it can certainly be related to the text Writing About Cool. Many times the expression “raging hormones” refers to teenagers when they are growing up. Teenagers have a different set of values, which makes them react to a different language such as words like “cool” and “suck”. So even though it is not a direct usage, the idea of hormones controlling our bodies is present even in English.

Lastly, there is a pervading theme I have noticed this year throughout all of my courses, which is the idea of change. We’ve encountered it in almost every class period and reading in this course with regards to blogging and the new forms of media that are emerging. It has also been made obvious to me in courses like biochemistry, where just yesterday our professor admitted that the slide he showed was outdated because the actual structure of the enzyme had been solved within the last few months. In similar ways, all my classes have been emphasizing that what we learn this semester will not all be true next semester, or many semesters from now for that matter.