3 February 2020

Dear Professor Bolster,

My name is Mohamed Kaba, and I am currently in my second year of college. I am a first-generation college student whose parents originate from the country of Guinea in West Africa. Certainly, for me, being born in America is a privilege that I have been granted, as I have been given the chance to pursue a better life, have access to a good education, and opportunities for my future career. At the current time being I am majoring in Psychology with the hopes of pursuing a future career in Physical Therapy.

I will begin by saying that I have a varying interest in Science that can be strange at times because some days I find myself liking it and other days I do not really like it a much. The Formal Sciences branch is one that I really like as it consists of math, which I find strange at times because I generally establish a distinction between the two seeing math as its own and not coming from science. Natural Sciences does not necessarily generate an interest within me on a deep level, it is not like the physical world aspect of science is not important to me, it is just more complex when it comes to understanding it. However, for this branch I specifically like biology. My favorite branch over the other two is Social Science, which can be assumed by my major. I commonly find myself observing people when in public and begin to think how the person came to be who they are. This made me want to pursue a degree in Psychology because everyone is different, and I really want to know why people are the way they are and better understand their relationships to things.

Overall. science is very relevant to my life and what I want to do for my future career. I see a connection between each branch and how they may apply to physical therapy. Additionally, I use it when trying to understand my body and why I feel sick at times, basic math when it comes to deal with money and other basic stuff like personality and weather. The subject of science is relevant to the world on a larger scale because it helps to us develop more knowledge on our world and attempt to make new discoveries and deal with any lingering unknowns that we do not have much knowledge on.  Unfortunately, I have not had any jobs or internships related to STEM.

One goal that I have for this semester is to achieve a 3.0 grade point average. Following a bad fall semester in which I did poorly, I have taken up to myself to do better as I am the one put my time and effort into coming to school and doing what I am capable of. To be able to reach that goal I find that I will have to meet another goal first, that being for me to be on top of my schoolwork. I say this because at times when the work is assigned, I do not immediately pay forward much attention to and it typically leads me to holding it off for a while until I notice the due date approaching. As a result, I find myself procrastinating the work which leads to me developing stress about the assignment(s). More importantly, the bigger goal looking forward is to graduate from City College with a bachelor’s in Psychology and eventually get into a Physical Therapy program.

Sincerely,

Mohamed Kaba