{"id":361,"date":"2017-01-20T08:00:14","date_gmt":"2017-01-20T14:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/agrilife.org\/urban-ipm\/?p=361"},"modified":"2017-01-19T12:35:52","modified_gmt":"2017-01-19T18:35:52","slug":"why-entomology-why-study-bugs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agrilife.org\/urban-ipm\/2017\/01\/20\/why-entomology-why-study-bugs\/","title":{"rendered":"Why entomology? Why study bugs?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I often get the questions of today’s topic posed to me when I meet people. \u00a0Why did you go into entomology? \u00a0How did you decide to work with bugs?<\/p>\n

It all started when I was a kid. \u00a0I loved insects. \u00a0I have various memories throughout my childhood that pointed to my future career as an entomologist, but I didn’t know at the time that I could work with insects and get paid for it.<\/p>\n

In 5th grade, we were assigned to research and write a report on the animal of our choice. \u00a0My friends picked normal things like dogs or giraffes or penguins. \u00a0What did I choose to do my report on? \u00a0Ticks. \u00a0Yes, you read it correctly. \u00a0The animal I wrote about was a blood-sucking ectoparasite known to transmit various diseases to mammals. \u00a0Why did I forego learning and writing about something cute and cuddly? \u00a0I could be glib and just say that I’m weird, which is true but doesn’t quite give a complete answer. \u00a0We had three large dogs when I was a kid and lived in the middle of nothing. \u00a0Ticks- picking them off the dogs, checking yourself for them when you came in from playing outside, smashing the engorged ones with a hammer (not the best idea, I know now….)- were a way of life. \u00a0I wanted to know more about them and the report was the perfect way to accomplish my goal.<\/p>\n

In 6th grade we were introduced to science fair. \u00a0We had to come up with a hypothesis, test it, draw conclusions and report on it. \u00a0What did I choose \"DSC_0023-001_thumb[3]\"<\/a>for this project? \u00a0I decided to buy an ant farm and build an ant farm to test which one would make the ants happier (i.e. tunnel further through the substrate). \u00a0This little project was inspired by one of my very favorite books to read as a small child- Ants are Fun by Mildred Myrick<\/a>. \u00a0Yes, I was weird even as a small child. \u00a0I can admit it now. \u00a0The book was about a kid that just moved into a new house and his curious neighbor wondering what the new kid was doing digging around in the yard. \u00a0The new kid loved ants and had made an ant farm, so inspiration! I thought it would be a great idea to make my own ant farm.<\/p>\n

Let’s jump to high school where I got to go to Ohio State<\/a> (it was called that back then, as opposed to THE Ohio State University) to tour the biological sciences department and learn about the different programs they had. \u00a0Entomology was one of those programs. \u00a0I was enchanted and giddy at the thought of learning more about insects. \u00a0For some reason, when I finally got around to going to Ohio State after graduating from high school, I decided I wanted to be a geneticist. \u00a0I began that course of study, changed to biology and then finally got around to taking an entomology class after I got all of my science prerequisites completed. \u00a0I changed my major to entomology about two weeks into the entomology course. \u00a0I remember calling my mom to tell her about changing my major and she said “What are you going to do with that?!”<\/p>\n

Fortunately, things have worked out well for me. \u00a0I have two degrees in entomology, married an entomologist (who doesn’t mind bugs in the freezer….the engineer I dated during undergrad was not fond of looking for food and finding bugs), and now my mom has someone to call whenever she has a bug that she needs to have identified.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I often get the questions of today’s topic posed to me when I meet people. \u00a0Why did you go into entomology? \u00a0How did you decide to work with bugs? It all started when I was a kid. \u00a0I loved insects. \u00a0I have various memories throughout my childhood that pointed to my future career as an entomologist, but I didn’t know at the time that I could work with insects and get paid for it. In 5th grade, we were assigned to research and write a report on the… Read More →<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":108,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[300,299],"class_list":["post-361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-career","tag-entomology"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhy entomology? Why study bugs? - Urban IPM<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/agrilife.org\/urban-ipm\/2017\/01\/20\/why-entomology-why-study-bugs\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why entomology? Why study bugs? - Urban IPM\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I often get the questions of today’s topic posed to me when I meet people. \u00a0Why did you go into entomology? \u00a0How did you decide to work with bugs? It all started when I was a kid. \u00a0I loved insects. \u00a0I have various memories throughout my childhood that pointed to my future career as an entomologist, but I didn’t know at the time that I could work with insects and get paid for it. In 5th grade, we were assigned to research and write a report on the... 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