Here’s a quick bit of biology education: all human beings are connected to each other. Somewhere around 3.5 billion years ago, amino acids combined in the primordial ooze, and the first lifeforms soon emerged. Every creature that has ever lived on earth comes from those first ancestors. Your life represents a single, unbroken thread from those first living creatures that leads directly to you.
Biology is Only In One Place: Earth
As far as we know, the earth is the only place in the universe where life exists. While we have found evidence for the possibility of life on other planets (Mars, for instance), it still pales in comparison to what we have here. If you live in an area where cicadas will emerge in the summer, you will come face-to-face with biology any time you step outside your door.
Not only is earth the only planet with life, but there is also no part of our planet where life does not thrive. For example, we have discovered life in the cold, dark, sunless depths of the ocean, where chemoautotrophic life forms feed on the minerals from sea vents. From sand wasps to snow fleas, we find insects and microbes that can survive in the harshest climates where unaided humans could not.
Biology and the Pandemic
Biology changed the way everybody sees the world in 2020, with the COVID-19 pandemic. Though pandemics are not new to human history, we know more now than we ever knew before. Our knowledge of microbiology, and how viruses work, has enabled us to identify the cause of the disease, and several effective treatments for it, within months of its first appearance.
More people than ever understand how respiratory viruses like COVID-19 work, and how different diseases can be transmitted in different ways. Millions of us have become armchair epidemiologists, learning as much as we can about spike proteins and how mRNA vaccines have the potential to revolutionize how we contend with disease in the future.
These little tidbits are just scratching the surface of the ways in which a biology education can affect how you perceive the world around you.
But Wait, It Gets Better: Graduate Biology Education
If you can learn this much from a blog post, imagine what amazing discoveries you can make with a graduate-level biology education. West Liberty University offers so many opportunities for anybody who wants to pursue a career–or just more knowledge–in biology.
An MA or MS in Zoo science can get you a career working closely with animals and their habitats. With Biomedical Science, you can establish a bedrock of education to prepare you for medical school. There are concentrations in Microbiology, Ecology, Evolution, Human Biology, and Environmental Stewardship, too, all of which could lead to exciting careers or even more advanced education.
The applied knowledge and experience gained through the MS in Biology will prepare students for continued education through a Biology PhD program. Obtaining an MS in Biology will significantly increase the likelihood that a student will be accepted into, and successfully complete a quality PhD program.