Progression of Skills and Values through a Baylor Education: Meghan McNeill
Skills and Values / Introductory / Intermediate / Advanced / ExperientialFreshman / Sophomore / Junior-Senior / Freshman-Senior
Communication and Quantitative Skills / 1) General Education / 2) Essays and Presentations / 3) Essays and Presentations in Major and/or at conferences on and off campus
Advanced research /writing courses in major. Also writing courses such as BUS 3315 or ENG 3303 / 4) Maximizing Skills: Departmental Tutors, Writing Center & Success Center
Selective Student-Life Opportunities
Critical Reasoning and Analysis / 5) General Education / 6) Research, team projects, essays, challenging courses / 7) Major Courses / 8) Undergraduate Research
Internships
Intellectual Depth & Breadth, Integrative Learning / 9) General Education
Moody and Jones Libraries / 10) Meetings with Advisors & Professors / 11) Upper Level Electives
Minor in Complementary Field / 12) Tutoring
Academic Clubs
Pro Ecclesia, Pro Texana (for the Church and World, through leadership and service) / 13) Chapel
Exploration of Major Fields of Study / 14) Confirming Major and Vocation
Meetings with Career Services professionals / 15) Enroll in an independent study and/or Civic Education, CSS 3300
Begin to explore professional / graduate school options, including appropriate prep. Course (LSAT, MCAT, GMAT, etc.) / 16) Study Abroad
Volunteering
Mission Trips
PAWS
Career Fairs
Christian Perspective and Ethics, including knowledge of Christian scripture and heritage / 17) U1000
REL 1310 & 1350 / 18) General Education
Campus Lectures and Exhibits / 19) Examples: Courses in Bioethics, Moral Philosophy, Christian Ethics for Business, etc. / 20) Church Involvement
Bobo Spiritual Life Center
6. I’ve been at a white board in the BSB for what feels like days: writing, re-writing, adjusting, and memorizing the mechanisms of dozens of O Chem reactions. My friends and I quiz each other relentlessly, trying to play worse tricks on each other than the test will play on us. Finally, as the sunset shines through the BSB windows, all the reactions start to click in my head.
7. My classmates (soon to become close friends) and I have been working on this homework assignment since class let out. At 2pm. It’s 1am. We’re trying to prove theorems that we hadn’t even heard of a few months ago. Hours fly by as we pass the Expo marker back and forth, trying dozens of different approaches to get at the proof. Finally, one person has a breakthrough, but he gets stuck. I take it a few steps further, then relinquish the marker to another. Then, it’s finished. We’ve proven it. QED.
9. I weave in between the intimidating shelves of second floor Jones library. I’m here getting books for a research paper on… I forget. A book about pi has caught my eye. And one about knot theory. And another about non-Euclidean geometry. I lean against the shelves, surrounded by the smell of books and the sound of near silence, voraciously skimming any interesting math book within arm’s reach. Hours later, I emerge with no books for my paper, but a growing curiosity about new areas of math.
10. Late on a Friday afternoon, I climb the three flights of stairs to the hidden floor of Morrison Hall. My professor told me about a meeting up here, and in my eagerness for it I ignore the fact that I know no one. We start with a prayer and then open up the Scriptures - in their original Greek. Slowly, painfully, and with great anticipation we translate each familiar verse. The slow pace and the foreign words allow me to be on the shores of the Jordan river with Jesus. The leader pauses the translation to teach us about the grammar involved with the voice that booms from heaven after Jesus’ baptism. Oh, what a wonderful way to learn a new language!
12. World Cultures I was one of my favorite classes, so it’s no surprise that I remained in it as a Peer Instructor for three years. Better than the curriculum, though, was watching people fall in love with this style of learning like I had during my freshman year. I watched my students connect ideas across texts and cultures, pull out new metaphors from within the text, and ponder what these lessons meant for them as we brainstormed essays before their tests. I watched their writing improve as they learned more mature styles, organization skills, and historical information than they had been exposed to in high school. Being on the teaching side of the classroom, I found, was even more wondrous than being a student!
13. Chapel: a brief moment where I get to worship God alongside the people I go to school with. Coming from a public school where I felt almost completely alone as a Christian, this moment of corporate worship moves me to tears. I sing the words of my new-found favorite hymn (Come Thou Fount) with all my heart.
14. I didn’t realize it at the time, but my Water-Related Diseases professor had just asked a question that would finally solidify my chosen career path. “Can anyone identify Alexander Fleming, Dr. Michael DeBakey, or Carl Darnall?” Many of my classmates could identify Fleming as the discoverer of penicillin and Dr. DeBakey as a celebrated heart surgeon, but none could recall ever hearing of Darnall. My professor informed us that Darnall’s simple addition of chlorine to drinking water has likely saved more lives than the discoveries of Fleming, the work of Dr. DeBakey, or any other single medical discovery. One unknown and uncelebrated man made an impact on the lives of people around the world with one simple idea. I realized could have a chance to be such a person as a biomedical engineer!
16. My first mission trip has me traipsing about the hot, humid streets of New York City, smiling at strangers and encouraging them to get tested for HIV. Even though I felt so distant from God in the weeks leading up to and including the trip, I still see His power. He leads my partner and I to scores of people along the street who are receptive to our message. He prompts the owner of the thrift store where we volunteer to ask us about our hope and our reason for being there. He touches the heart of a teenage girl who vows to stay HIV-free. I am now bitten by the proverbial “missions bug.”
20. My involvement at church was one of the best things about my time at Baylor. I got to serve, learn, worship, and grow with the people I lived and studied with every day. We were truly living life together! Through small group, leadership team, various service teams, and weekly worship, I slowly realized how wonderful it was to follow Jesus together. We comforted, cried, prayed, laughed, danced, and matured together over my years at Baylor. God showed me how often He loves to work through other people, and it’s a lesson I’ll not soon forget.
Meaghan McNeill
Ms. McNeill is just finishing up her first year of a Ph.D. program in Bioengineering at Rice University.Her research involves developing inexpensive, paper-based, point-of-care diagnostic tools, which would greatly increase access to and use of health care resources in the developing world.This work leverages everything from Meaghan's fascination with biology to her love for God and compassion for others to her interests in origami.