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 blog post is called "Midterms with a Flavor of Archery" because my week 7 of Fall '24 was full of midterms (three of them), ended with a nice session of archery practice, and made me develop a certain sensitivity to the word "flavor."
The collection of bows the Dartmouth Outing Club's Archery sub club has.
A week of three midterms—now that it's the weekend and they are all in the past—wasn't so bad. (Though I felt very differently about my week last Sunday.)
This week, I got a better grade on myComputer Science 10exam than last time, which I consider progress :) I had a lot of fun preparing for my Computational Neuroscience (PSYC 40) exam because I finally understood (on my own!) how to solve a specific problem regarding Hopfield neural networks (or at least I think I understand it, we'll see when the exam gets graded). And I actually had fun during my Physics 3midterm.
Disclaimer about PHYS 3: at Dartmouth, students have the option to "NRO"a course. This means that students can elect the "Non-Recording Option" and as long as they don't fail the class, they get to decide whether they receive a grade on their transcript or not. For example, if I get a grade below A- in Physics 3, no one will know, because I've NRO-ed the class (and set the range at an A- and below to show NR on my transcript). I won't receive a grade (unless I get an A) for physics on my transcript; having an NR won't affect my overall GPA ; I'll only receive the credit that I've taken physics. I could NRO physics this term because it's a prerequisite class for the neuroscience major; you can't NRO core major classes or classes taken for the distributive requirements.
Getting to relax with friends from the Archery club after a very busy week :)
Since I've NRO-ed physics, I don't worry too much about my grade and can, therefore, have more fun solving the problems and enjoying the class work.
Now, where do "flavors" come into my week? I had my physics exam this Friday at 1 pm, and because I was preparing for it the whole morning, I accidentally skipped lunch. I started feeling the effects of this decision toward the end of the exam, but right after physics, I had my CS 10 lecture, so I had no time to eat in between. During computer science, we discussed ways to have your program recognize patterns in inputs through finite automata. And, as Professor Pierson mentioned multiple times in that class, there are two FLAVORS of finite automata—deterministic and non-deterministic. Every time the professor said the word "flavor," all I could think of was how hungry I was…
Now you get the reference in the blog post's title. My week ended with a flavor of archery :)
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!
Some of my rising senior friends from New York have been in contact with me since graduation, and I've compiled a list of FAQs that might help you better understand life at Dartmouth!
