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.
Behind the Scenes of PSYC 36: Neuroscience Systems
I'm the only freshman in my neuroscience class, PSYC 36, because Neuroscience Systems is a core major course. It covers different systems in the nervous system–from different parts of the brain to the division of the autonomic nervous system. Freshmen are usually busy exploring introductory courses, and that's probably the reason only upperclassmen take PSYC 36. However, the freshman whose blog post you're reading has some crazy ambitions for double majors, and she wanted to get started on her first major early on. So, I'm taking PSYC 36 my freshman spring.
Initially, I was afraid that it might be too difficult for me, but PSYC 6, Introduction to Neuroscience, one of the requirements for the Neuroscience Major, actually covered around seventy percent of what we're studying in PSYC 36. The remaining thirty percent easily complements the knowledge I already have from the intro course.
My lab homework: a map of the sheep brain
There's one aspect of PSYC 36 that's more exciting than anything else: the lab component. Every Tuesday, for two hours, my classmates and I dissect a sheep's brain. We each have a jar full of formaldehyde where we keep our sheep brain. During lab sessions, we have a manual that we read, and with whose help we identify all the structures in the sheep brain. According to the syllabus, we'll soon be looking at a human brain, too, and by the end of the term, we'll also work with lab rats. More on this once we actually get there.
Every Dartmouth student is required to demonstrate proficiency in a language other than English. Here's my experience navigating the language requirement!
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?
