Cell biology as a field is arguably the fastest moving scientific subfield being driven by both basic and biomedical research endeavors. As such, I place a great deal of emphasis on experimental techniques and how they can be used and combined in novel ways to generate new discoveries in cell biology. If you simply memorize current models in cell biology, your knowledge will become obsolete within a few years. If you gain confidence in understanding how knowledge is generated, how you might go about generating new knowledge, and how to read and critically reevaluate the latest scientific literature, you will have gained or honed skills which you can employ for years to come. These types of skills will be useful to you no matter whether your next immediate goal is teaching science, entering medical school, entering graduate school, or working as a research technician.
Cells are incredibly complex and fascinating entities.
They are the fundamental unit of life, and we will study them at both higher levels of cell-cell signaling and at the more detailed level of macromolecular interactions. Cell biology is also incredibly relevant to the field of medicine. As more and more genes are discovered via the Human Genome Project, as new lethal viruses and toxic bacteria arise, and as cancer continues to be a disease that we all must deal with directly or indirectly, it is research in cell biology which will tell us how things are going wrong and suggest useful therapies. You should find that a firm grasp of cell biology will have the added benefit of aiding you in the interpretation and evaluation of proposed medical treatments. As biologists, I expect that many of you will be called on for medical advice by both friends and family members.