User:Tmbirkhead

My education has been greatly enhanced by wikipedia.

It has been my experience that Wikipedia is widely criticized within academic circles (especially college courses) because: 1. Since it can be edited by anyone, it can be tarnished by everyone 2. It sometimes has inaccurate or misleading material 3. It tends to have too much depth for a first time approach on some subjects, or not enough depth for those looking to dig deeper.

While these criticisms are rarely true, I have seen the community endeavor of wikipedia users to constantly improve and provide digestable and in-depth information. Wikipedia has done more to democratize knowledge than anything since the Public school and Public library.

Rarely, I see opportunities to improve the wikipedia mission, and I try to contribute to the community, especially for the great contributions I have received.

Credentials
I'm Mike Birkhead, as of the writing of this, I'm a second year medical student in the United States of America. I am actively studying medicine, and preparing for the USMLE step 1 board exams, which I will be taking within the year. My undergraduate degree is a BS in biology. I love biology and I used the degree as a step-stone into medical school, but my two true loves are medicine and physics (Although, I feel like I barely understand either one of them).

My goal is to democratize education even further. I do this by contributing to Wikipedia and by adding educational videos onto my youtube channel (Mike Birkhead -- user/michaelbirkhead).

Interests
My areas of wikipedia interest include: Biology, Physics, Physiology, Pathology, Disease Treatment, Diagnosis, and anything else related to science or Evidence-based-medicine

My User Page
This page is being created, ultimately, because Wikipedia keeps sending me a message asking me to make a user page.

Watching
Autoimmune disease

Teach Me
I would love to learn how to be a better contributor to wikipedia, but I honestly don't have the time to read a zillion articles. I have figured out most things on my own, but I still don't know how the messaging system, on wikipedia, works. If anyone could send me a message and explain how to reply and how to send other messages, I'd be greatful -- Although, I might not read your message for a month or two... Just saying, I don't check emails and messages daily. Tmbirkhead (talk) 20:06, 7 November 2015 (UTC)