Listening 8 – Listen for specific words

I was a chemistry major in college, and I picked that because I had always been interested in science as a kid. I was really into volcanos and Fill in the blank 1 of 21 , dinosaurs and fossils, and stuff like that, and I used to read some pretty advanced books for my age on those Fill in the blank 2 of 21 .

Both of my parents have a science background – my dad was an Fill in the blank 3 of 21 , and my mom has a psychology degree – so they always encouraged me, and my dad would do these science experiments for me and my brother to see and learn some of the Fill in the blank 4 of 21 of chemistry and physics and whatnot.

Also in high school I had a wonderful chemistry teacher, she really made the subject fascinating, and not just like a boring list of chemical reactions and Fill in the blank 5 of 21 to memorize. We would have class with her, but we would also do lab work, you know, experiments and it was very hands-on. So when it came time to pick a major in college, it was a toss-up between chemistry and Fill in the blank 6 of 21 , but I eventually settled on chemistry.

I went to a pretty small college, and what was great about that is that I had the opportunity to use lab equipment that Fill in the blank 7 of 21 undergrads wouldn’t get a chance to use. We were trained to use some really sophisticated machinery and we were able to do research that is really quite Fill in the blank 8 of 21 to what we’d be doing if we continued into a career in chemistry.

And I absolutely loved the process of Fill in the blank 9 of 21 , of using what was already known to investigate things that were unknown. My area of specialization was marine natural products chemistry – so basically, studying sea creatures like sponges and algae, and trying to extract and Fill in the blank 10 of 21 some of the chemical compounds in them that had anti-bacterial and cancer-fighting properties, so that these could eventually be Fill in the blank 11 of 21 into new drugs and medicines.

Both during and after my college years I did a couple of internships in a pharmaceutical company, which was doing the same kind of work, and it was there that I started to second-guess myself and Fill in the blank 12 of 21 whether or not I really wanted to do this type of work for the rest of my life. Although the work was interesting, it was also very slow – it can take Fill in the blank 13 of 21 to make progress in this area – and it was also extremely, extremely specialized, which felt limiting because I have a really broad Fill in the blank 14 of 21 of interests.

So I decided not to continue – I turned down a scholarship to go to grad school – and it was a tough decision because I was basically turning my Fill in the blank 15 of 21 on a sure-fire career with a great starting salary, and instead choosing a path of uncertainty. But I know it was ultimately the Fill in the blank 16 of 21 decision.

Nowadays, now that people know me as an English teacher, they’re often pretty Fill in the blank 17 of 21 to hear that I have a degree in chemistry – but I actually think my science background has helped me in some Fill in the blank 18 of 21 ways. That ability to research and investigate means I’m always experimenting and testing to discover the best ways to help my students learn, and I’m always learning new things myself in the process.

Also, in college I did a lot of Fill in the blank 19 of 21 of my chemistry research, and so I learned how to communicate some very complicated concepts in layman’s terms, so that they would be clear and understandable to someone even if they didn’t have any knowledge of chemistry at all. And now it’s a fundamental Fill in the blank 20 of 21 of my teaching style, this ability to simplify what seems confusing and complex, and I can thank my experience in the Fill in the blank 21 of 21 of chemistry for that, too.