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.
I've been putting off writing this blog post for a long time now. I just don't feel like I've done enough research to talk about research at Dartmouth, but it seems like this school year (my second year) I'll be doing a lot more research than last.
When I was doing my college search two years ago, people often threw at me the suggestion: "Don't forget to check what research opportunities there are!" I never knew what they actually meant by "research opportunities." And to be honest, I've used this phrase when advising high school students, too, even though I still don't know exactly how you determine what research opportunities there are, even if you GO to this school.
Most of my girl friends found research opportunities by the end of our first term at Dartmouth. The Women in Science Program paired a lot of them with professors in a number of STEM departments, and I probably should have taken advantage of this opportunity, too. My first term, however, was marked by my turbulent what-major-should-I-do dilemmas and for some reason (too long to explain) I had decided that I didn't want to major in a science subject and closed the door to WISP internships.
By the end of my first winter term, however, I had decided that I wanted to major in neuroscience, so I started looking for the so-called "research opportunity." I sat down and browsed through every Dartmouth neuroscience professor's lab website I could find.
That's how I found out about Professor Emily Finn and her Functional Imaging & Naturalistic Neuroscience Lab. After thirty minutes of poking around FINN Lab's website, I knew I had found a lab to my liking, a lab that seemed to have something to say to each of my interests at the time, even those different from neuroscience.
My own research assistant Lani, actively helping me revise my URAD application.
A written application, a few emails, and a few weeks later, I found myself on Moore Hall's third floor, sitting at Katie's office. Katie (Kathryn O'Nell) is a graduate student interested in social cognition, who had seen in my CV her own interests. My "interview" with Katie was mostly Katie telling me about HER work and MY potential work and then saying, "But, of course, you don't need to decide NOW if you want to work with me…"
"Oh, no, I do want to work with you!" I quickly said, unable to believe my luck.
And that's how I became Katie's research assistant.
This summer, I worked on my first URAD application (Undergraduate Research Assistantship at Dartmouth). This research program gives fellowship stipends to students who have completed a term of part-time research at a given lab. Before you officially become eligible for the stipend, you need to outline in the application which lab you'll be working at, under which professor, and on what project. A few days ago I received an email confirming my becoming a URAD scholar–I've found my research opportunity!!!
Unlike some other universities, many of the STEM lecture classes at Dartmouth require concurrent enrollment in a laboratory section. What is it like navigating that time as a student?
