> I found my high school and college biology classes to be a dry litany of jargon and diagrams, sucking the wonder out of the incredible machinery of life.
Indeed, same here. As of myself I always liked the biology but the way it was teached was always far from what could be considered as good.
For example, I remember classes about proteins. There were some mentions about protein structures, from aminoacid sequence to 3-d shape. But it was never explained what the proteins are actually doing and why they need to have different shapes. Why do we need so much of them? I remember that it was very profound experience when I discovered how complex is the molecular machinery and I started to look on the biochemistry from completely different perspective
Indeed, same here. As of myself I always liked the biology but the way it was teached was always far from what could be considered as good.
For example, I remember classes about proteins. There were some mentions about protein structures, from aminoacid sequence to 3-d shape. But it was never explained what the proteins are actually doing and why they need to have different shapes. Why do we need so much of them? I remember that it was very profound experience when I discovered how complex is the molecular machinery and I started to look on the biochemistry from completely different perspective