Today we had the first session of our course “Structure and Function of Animals.” I knew that I would have to do something like this in my studies, but I didn’t really know what I should expect.

In school I didn’t have anything like this, and friends couldn’t tell me much about it, either. On the one hand I was really curious, and on the other hand I also had a guilty conscience. I felt guilty about the animals that had to die so we could dissect them.

Today we have so many possibilities to look at something without killing the animals. I know that we learn best by touching and doing things ourselves. In medicine students also have to work on corpses first before they can move on to living patients.

But the people used make a conscious decision to donate their bodies to science after they die, and they die a natural death.

For us, the animals are killed for the course. I think that’s one of the main things that bothers me about it.

Laura, 1st semester, Biology