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.
This summer, I wrote a blog post aboutmy first steps into research at Dartmouth; they were pretty wobbly first steps. When I was a high-school senior looking for my dream college (readhere about how I found Dartmouth andhow I decided to apply Early Decision), I used to find the term "research opportunities" frustratingly vague. And then, as a first-year, overwhelmed with the sheer number of things I needed to figure out about my existence as a Dartmouth student, I found the term frustratingly stressful. (It's supposed to be something cool and exciting, why is it stressful?)
4:04 PM. This is the view from the fourth floor of Fairchild Tower. You can see Baker Tower, the hills surrounding Hanover, and some PRETTY sunsets.
Now that I'm about to finish my first term at Dartmouth as an undergraduate research assistant, I'd love to share with you one aspect of what it means to find a "research opportunity." (I'll be coming back to this topic, so watch out for more blog posts.)
First, though, let me tell you about Katie, my cheerful, always very excited, and very exciting-to-talk-to graduate student mentor.
4:46 PM. The sky gets increasingly more beautiful. I'm very convinced Fairchild 4th floor is my favorite study spot on campus.
I met Katie—unofficially—in myfirst-year writing seminarCognitive Don Quixote (you can read more about this classhere). Katie was a guest lecturer, who came to my class to present her research in cognitive psychology, and I stayed to talk with her after the lecture (we both have a very vague memory of me doing that, haha). Then, after I sent my CV to the FINN Lab, Katie saw an overlap between her interests and mine and invited me to the lab for an interview (only once I arrived at her office did I realize that we had already met). This term, Katie was also the teaching assistant for myIntroduction to Computational Neuroscienceclass (so the overlap in interests became even more pronounced), and while talking about classwork one day, we realized that our paths had already crossed in the past without either of us realizing it. In my junior year in high school, I took an online course on artificial intelligence, the exercises for which turned out to have been designed by Katie!
"Small world!" said Katie.
I say that we were just bound to meet one day and work together. :)
5:08 PM. Sold. I love this view. You can officially quote me now that Fairchild fourth floor is my favorite study spot on campus.
After a term of working as an undergraduate research assistant, I can now extract some of the vagueness from the term "research opportunities at college." Programs likeURAD(Undergraduate Research Assistantship at Dartmouth), which provide the so-called "research opportunities," actually provide you an opportunity to work closely with a graduate student or a professor who will mentor you, inspire you, and shower you with excitement about science, so that your own passion blossoms.
As a Digital Media Student Director for Dartmouth's First-Generation Office, it is my role on campus to amplify first-gen voices, foster community, and create meaningful connections through creative outreach.
This fall, Dartmouth provided me with incredible opportunities to get involved in politics. I registered as a New Hampshire voter, joined civic organizations, canvassed, and more! Read on to follow my journey leading up to Election Day!
