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 equally fascinated by the human brain and storytelling, and I often think about the importance of stories when trying to understand the human mind. 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.
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. ;)
One of the significant responsibilities of Alpha Theta house managers (Alpha Theta is a gender inclusive Greek house) is an event called "House Days." Towards the middle of the term, a week before the termly fire safety inspection, all Greek houses must pass said inspection. We hold House Days for members to clean the main spaces in the house together. It's a weekend for deep cleaning the two living rooms, the library, the basement, the kitchen, and the bathrooms. And it's a weekend for eating a lot of pizza, of course.
Every term during house days, we discover something unexpected. Once, the spring house manager, Shawn, and I found an old map that, upon some amateur investigation (aka googling it), turned out to be more than a hundred years old (you can read about that experience here). This term, Sonia and I discovered several yarn balls hidden inside a bean bag by a member who didn't have much room for packing. (We had to empty the bean bag so that we could wash its cover.)
A week after House Days, we passed our fire safety inspection. (Yoo-hoo!) The house was deemed clean and safe (a weight fell off my house manager's shoulders), and it was in good shape to welcome the Alpha Theta alums who visited the house the following weekend. Dartmouth alumni, notably classes of 2009 and 2011, gathered on campus last weekend for an alum reunion.
This is Sonia and I during house days—Sonia is holding a ball of yarn we discovered inside the bean bag.
Alpha Theta undergraduates are the one group on campus I love spending time with—it's a group that bonds over all sorts of passions (tea, board games, movies, linguistics, books, etc.). I figured that Alpha Theta alums would be the type of adults I'd also love talking to. I was so right in my prediction that I was even a little surprised how much I enjoyed the alum reunion. I usually characterize myself as shy and drained by social events with a lot of new people, but meeting the alums was so energizing, and I was sad when they left. I wish they could stay around and keep telling us stories about what Alpha Theta was like back in the day (not that different, apparently—we still like doing many of the same activities). And I wished they could keep telling us stories about the life of an Alpha Thetian post-graduation—Alpha Theta friendships lasting for life, Alpha Thetians getting married.
It's a thrilling feeling to meet someone who feels like a friend—because they share my interests and my college experience—but also a knowledgeable mentor, who seems to have lived through the exact challenges I have and succeeded.
Composites of portraits of Alpha Thetians line the walls in our house. Now I can't walk past the 2011 and 2009 composites without stopping and thinking, "Ah, yes. Here are the Alpha Thetians I met." They made it out there in the real world. They're my proof of principle that the values we hold do work in real life :)
Dartmouth is known for its outstanding graduate schools of business, engineering, and medicine, but how can undergraduates take part in that enriching environment? Read more to find out!
In one of my previous posts, I mentioned how I joined a sorority earlier this fall by going through the recruitment process. I've come a long way since then. In fact, I am living in my sorority house for my sophomore summer!
