I'm Kalina, a '27 from Sofia, Bulgaria. I love books (I love reading and writing them), and I particularly love fantasy (i.e., I'm an expert on Middle Earth and Hogwarts studies). I'm fascinated by the human brain and the real-world magic of science. I also love hiking, bird-watching, climbing, and em dashes.
Instead of taking a normal Writing 5 course, I decided to fulfill my first-year writing requirement by taking HUM 1. This course helped me strengthen my relationship to literature and writing. It changed the way in which I thought about classics, both books and movies (we saw Wall-E, by the way). And it also changed the way I thought about academic writing and literary criticism. A third of the course was made up of lectures by professors from different departments, while the other two thirds were discussions with a single professor and a small group of 15 students.
Intro to Neuroscience was the first course I was truly excited about. It wasn't an easy course; we had a weekly quiz of ten to thirteen questions covering the lectures from the past few days, but it was very interesting and also very funny (Professor Winter's humor is legendary). We learned about the human brain at the level of individual cells. We also studied it at the level of different systems, from the olfactory system to the parasympathetic nervous system. And last, we learned about cognition: learning, attention, language. We saw a real human brain with formaldehyde dripping from it. We saw a real sheep's brain. And a rat's brain. And we pocked each other with paper clips to determine the sensitivity of our touch receptors.
Journalism with Professor Alexis Jetter was an enjoyable class, sometimes challenging but very satisfying. We covered a lot of US history through the lens of the media, and we started every class with a discussion of the current news and events (thanks to these discussions, I feel like a real adult now—not so lost when the conversation turns toward politics). Several guest lecturers—from former students of Professor Jetter who're now journalists to a New York Times war correspondent—brought us real stories from the field. In the middle of the term, each of us had to find someone over 30 years old in the Upper Valley, spend a day with them, and write a profile.
SummerSofia, Bulgaria
I'm spending my first summer back home, helping my family care for my newborn sister. In my free time (changing diapers takes a lot of time!), I'm doing research for the cognitive neuroscience lab FINN Lab, preparing for my classes in the fall, and working on a new book.
Behind the Scenes of PSYC 40: Computational Neuroscience
Let me take you on a woccom today and tell you about my favorite class this term: Computational Neuroscience. Before we dive into the academics, though, What's a woccom again?
"Woccom" is the Dartmouth term for a walk around Occom Pond, a nice pond at the north end of campus, right near Pine Park. I sometimes go on woccoms alone (I went on one this Friday and was inspired to include it in this blog post), though most times I go with a friend. Woccoms make for really good "podcast" conversations.
Occom Pond this October.
In any case, woccoms hold a special place in Dartmouth students' hearts.
"What's in a Woccom?"is a cool article by our newspaper The Dartmouth that will give you a better perspective on the significance of woccoms, but enough background info. Let me take you on a woccom now and tell you about my favorite class this term.
The first part of the class is dedicated to the brain: its evolution, physiology and anatomy, and the mechanisms that govern learning. I'm a neuroscience major, so I found this part of the class very interesting but not too difficult. As Professor Granger says, the first part of the class is easy for the biologists (who are okay with all the convoluted details of biology that baffle engineers).
The biologist in me spent five minutes during my "woccom" this Friday marveling at those berries. I don't know what they are, but I loved them :)
The second part of the class is dedicated to linear algebra and the architectures and characteristics of several neural networks (the perceptron, the extended perceptron, Hopfield neural networks, and competitive networks). This part of the course was still very interesting to me, but I haven't been a computer science (double) major long enough to find it as easy as I found the neuroscience part.
The third part of the course is a mix of the first two—we're now looking at brain systems and comparing their performance and architecture to artificial networks. Supposedly, this part of the class will be difficult for both the biologists and programmers. Only now I appreciate how difficult (yet very inspiring) Professor Granger's job is: he looks at a biological system like the paleocortex (responsible for olfaction/smell), recognizes the rules it follows, and finds a way to explain it all, so we can understand it. He sees the math and algorithms in the messy world of biology, and I find this a fascinating skillset without which you couldn't understand or even marvel at the efficient algorithms evolution has come up with that just strike you with their elegance.
I've long considered myself a biologist (to the disdain of my mom, who's a programmer herself and finds it difficult appreciate any other vocation but the programmer's), but PSYC 40 has been teaching me how to think like both a biologist and a programmer and how to think about science itself. All thanks to Professor Granger's pearls of life wisdom mixed with his unreplicable humor. I'd recommend taking his class just to be in his presence for a bit.
PS: The header picture for this blog post is the Dartmouth Outing Club house which overlooks Occom Pond from the north.
Dartmouth's dining options are reduced during winterim due to the significantly smaller number of students on campus. Find out about dining options during winterim, from a dietary, logistical, and financial perspective!
In elementary school, I did ballet. In middle school, I tried diving. In high school, I played volleyball. And now, in college, I guess I'm a hockey player! Read on to learn a bit about Dartmouth Club Sports and our Women's Ice Hockey Program!
