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.
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.
Undergraduate Research Assistant Goes to Lab Meetings
I scribble down notes while my gaze keeps swiveling from one graduate student to another. I do my best to keep up with the conversation, to keep track of which piece of the experiment puzzle we're now focusing on, but sometimes it feels like my mentors at the FINN lab (Professor Emily Finn's Functional Imaging & Naturalistic Neuroscience lab) are speaking in a foreign language. It's exhilarating–it's full neuroscience immersion! And it's enough to make my head spin.
This is what a journal-club-like weekly lab meeting at the FINN lab sometimes feels like, when everyone reads the same scientific paper and at the meeting discusses its findings, its shortcomings, or its brilliance.
I have the privilege to work as an undergraduate research assistant at the FINN lab, under the graduate student Katie, Kathryn O'Nell, who studies cognitive psychology. (Every term, many students like me receive stipends from UGAR, the Undergraduate Advising & Research program, to be able to work part-time in a lab like that.)
One of my favorite aspects of having access to a lab is attending weekly lab meetings. Very often, a graduate student will practice their conference presentation at lab meetings, and I'll gain an exciting perspective of how those talks get prepared. Other times, people present their ideas and listen to feedback. I've been struck by how honest and helpful the lab members are when giving feedback.
Baker Library as I pass it on my way to the lab.
This winter term, Katie and I pitched a new project idea. It was my first time speaking in front of the grad students, which by itself was an interesting experience–I wanted to be both clear but also detailed (I sometimes tend to skip over things), but at the same time, I knew, I was speaking to people much smarter and more experienced than me (maybe I didn't need to fill in all the gaps?)… Anyways, after going over our ideas and background research, I sat back down and observed the grad students begin dissecting the ideas. By the end of the meeting, it felt like we had done a 180-turn and were now thinking in a very different direction, the original idea a mere echo of what we were going to be working on from then on.
I realized during this lab meeting that the magic of science was happening right before my eyes. I say "magic," but it's not very cinematic–there were no explosions and no fMRIs* even. The magic was seeing a circle of people passionately discuss ideas and help each other reach better conclusions. And that's all there is to it, really, and I'm grateful I could experience it.
* Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging is a common technique to study the brain in cognitive neuroscience
I sat down with Aarushi Jain '25, a coxswain on the women's rowing team, to learn more about the opportunities to study abroad as an athlete at Dartmouth!
Once you are here, Dartmouth ensures that you have the tools you need to thrive, regardless of where you start. Read on to discover some of Dartmouth's lesser-known resources!
Dartmouth professors truly make all the difference, especially when you have the opportunity to take them out to lunch and get to know them outside of the classroom. Read about my Differential Equations professor Professor Robert Dougherty Bliss.
