I'm Kalina, a '27 from Sofia, Bulgaria. My academic interests lie at the intersection of neuroscience, storytelling, and the use of computational methods to study the brain. Outside academia, I love books (I love reading and writing them), and I love hiking, bird-watching, and climbing.
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.
Computational Neuroscience with Professor Richard Granger is a multidisciplinary course taught by a multidisciplinary professor and designed for multidisciplinary thinkers. The class covered brain anatomy and physiology and the biology of learning; it covered linear algebra and the architectures and characteristics of several neural networks. Last, we had a module on "brain engineering"—how some brain circuits function and how we can get inspired by them as engineers.
The first focus of Discrete Math for Computer Science was learning to think like a mathematician: how do we use logic to find proofs to problems and our solutions? Next, we learned how to apply this thinking in computer science contexts — how do you prove that a recursive program works? How do you prove what its run-time is going to be? These were the kind of skills we were building in preparation for the next course in the theoretical computer science sequence: Algorithms. Before we can build algorithms, we need to know how to think about the steps we need to take to solve problems with the rigor of mathematical logic.
This term I decided to venture out of my comfort zone and fill out of my distributive requirements with a government class. Taught by Professor Steven Simon, America and the Middle East was one of the most interesting classes I've taken at Dartmouth. The class covered the evolution of US foreign policy toward the Middle East from the early days of the Republic to modern times. The books and papers we were assigned to read for each class were complemented by Professor Simon's lectures (his storytelling style made his class one of the few classes with 2-hour-long lectures that keep my attention till the very end), and he shared fascinating anecdotes from his work and trips.
SummerHanover, NH
I am spending my sophomore summer on campus, doing full-time research at the FINN Lab (Functional Imaging and Naturalistic Neuroscience Lab). This summer I get to do a little bit of programming, stimuli writing, and data analysis and run a pilot study that will pave the way for a bigger neuro-imaging experiment. I am also serving as the house manager of Alpha Theta Gender Inclusive Greek House. I'm still deciding which is more challenging: navigating academia or the intricacies of taking care of an actual house. ;)
Molecular Neuroscience with Professor Michael Hoppa is one of my favorite classes in the Neuroscience major. Professor Hoppa wrapped every dense lecture on myriads of proteins, enzymes, synapses—you name it—in stories; he wanted to teach us who the scientists behind the discoveries were, how they approached their work, and what impactful science looks like.
Perspectives in Native American and Indigenous Studies with Professor Matt Hooley was a fantastic class. It focused on student creativity and authenticity, and the readings featured excellent contemporary authors who visited campus to talk to us. The writers Abigail Chabitnoy and Julian Brave NoiseCat, and the architect Christian Nakarado presented their work and answered our questions at the ReStoried Archives event at Dartmouth.
Resource Extraction and Indigenous Led Solutions with Professor Lydia Jennings was a continuation of my dive into the NAIS department. The curriculum covered a myriad of topics, from water and fishing rights to oil extraction. After studying each challenge, we learned about the solutions indigenous communities are working toward, often directly through guest speakers. Athlete-advocate Jordan Marie Daniel, Dartmouth alumna Abagail Burgess, and author Joseph Lee all shared their fascinating journeys with the class.
SummerPrinceton, NJ
I spent my junior summer working at a computational neuroscience lab in Princeton, New Jersey. My research internship was fully supported by a stipend from the Dartmouth Center for Career Design, and I got to spend a lot of time thinking about neuroscience, graduate school, and what I'm going to do after my senior year. When not in the lab, I was exploring climbing gyms in New York and New Jersey, inviting all of my new climbing friends to stop by the Dartmouth Climbing Gym if they were ever in New Hampshire or Vermont.
Last winter term, I decided to dive into the Native American and Indigenous Studies department at Dartmouth with Professor Matt Hooley's fantastic introductory class (you can read about it here). Professor Hooley's class opened many intellectual doors for me: it put incredible thinkers and writers on my radar (that is, on my summer reading list), and it gave rise to a little voice in the back of my mind that now questions some of my previously held beliefs and mindsets. Liberal arts colleges teach critical thinking, right? I've never felt it more clearly in my academic career than now.
I think of myself primarily as a (future) scientist (you can read about the fantastic research opportunities at Dartmouth here and about my neuroscience research with cognitive neuroscience Professor Emily Finnhere), so when studying in the NAIS department, I found it imperative to learn more about Indigenous scientific perspectives and how I could improve the ways in which I'd been practicing science.
This curiosity was how I found Professor Lydia Jennings' class NAIS 23 Resource Extraction and Indigenous-Led Solutions. Professor Jennings is a soil scientist and a runner (you can watch a short movie about her journey here), and if I had to describe her in one word, it'd probably be "passionate." Her teaching style reflects her dedication to teaching all the nuances and complexity of a topic and to bringing different voices into the narrative, including guest speakers and even her own students and their experiences. Professor Jennings believes that since everyone has a different life story, everyone can be the classroom expert in something, and she loves hearing all perspectives.
For our homework, Professor Jennings assigned readings, but also movies and podcasts. She asked everyone to lead class discussions on a topic related to the week's theme; my favorite student-led discussion included Indigenous skiing films. Who'd think that skiing films would be featured in a class discussion?
My muffin mountain, and all the chocolate I mined.
Once, Professor Jennings asked each student in the class to pick a muffin and mine it for chocolate chips. Your muffin is your mountain. Choose your tools (they're going to cost a set amount of money); then extract as much chocolate as you want. Some muffin mountains turned into crumbs: all the chocolate was mined, and there was no mountain at the end. Other muffin mountains looked more preserved, but their owners made less money. And no one, Professor Jennings pointed out, decided not to mine their mountain. Professor Jennings wanted to show us that resource extraction questions are never simple and that you need to hold multiple perspectives in mind at the same time.
It's said that Dartmouth educates global citizens. With classes like NAIS 23, I can proudly affirm that yes, indeed, Dartmouth educates global citizens. Furthermore, studying under scholars like Professor Jennings makes me glad to have chosen the liberal arts education path
This fall, I'm interning at AGBO, an independent entertainment studio in Los Angeles. Here's what a typical day in my life looks like, told through photos!
If you are interested in pursuing medicine after graduating from high school, as I was, you'll be looking at how different universities design their "pre-health" experience. What does that experience look like at Dartmouth College?
