Graduate Career Start Number 2

I'm going to take a step back from the commentaries on research to talk about my own life in neuroscience. Tomorrow, I start my graduate career for the second time. What I mean by this is that I start my first classes in the graduate neuroscience program. I have Fundamentals of Neuroscience and Foundations of Human Neuropsychology as well as seminar. These courses provide my introduction into graduate studies. From what I can see from the syllabus for human neuropsych, I'll have a little more reading than I am used to from college.
The only real problem that I foresee in the classes is the matter of actually getting to the classes. I have to go from the West side to the East side back to the West side and every fourth Tuesday, back to the East side. The time between my two classes is 10 minutes. That is not a lot of time when it takes 15 minutes to get from one side of the river to the other by bike and 25 minutes if you catch a bus.
I guess I'll see how it goes. I am really excited to start to take these classes and to compare how difficult they are and what I learn to the classes that I took at St. Olaf.
Time will tell if the excitement keeps strong after 9/30 and the completion of my second test.

Summer Research - Drafted May 31st

Tomorrow I start my summer rotation in the Neuroscience program at the University of Iowa. I am working with Dr. Jean Gordon on two projects, one entitled "Phonological neighborhoods in aphasia" and the other entitled, "The Relationship between Language Use and the Perception of Wisdom." I am very excited to begin working on these research projects. A few thoughts before I begin this work. I can't believe that I have come this far. It is something special to accomplish a goal that you have worked a majority of your life for. However, I am not satisfied just making it here. I need to continue to learn and accomplish and set higher goals. This is a chance to challenge myself and to go for bigger and better things ahead. I feel as though I have entered the field at one of the most exciting times. I think that we are on the brink of some major discoveries and about to open the door to hundreds of new questions. The advances in technology and our increasing abilities to attack the questions of the mind are placing us at an interesting time.

One problem with the speed of our discoveries and our advancements is our ability to recognize the impact and the consequences of our actions. There are many ethical questions to deal with when we confront these new discoveries. How are we supposed to understand and handle these things which are so new to us and deal with the most personal aspects of ourselves? In understanding the mind and how it works, we are understanding ourselves. Do we truly want to know everything about ourselves? Or maybe more appropriately, do we want others to know everything about us? Issues with genetics, how we think and why we think will make our personal lives very public.

This is where the topics of one of the research projects applies. We need to look to the wisdom of those who have come before us in applying and using our new discoveries. Although the frontiers that we are entering are unlike any that we have approached before, we must tread carefully in these times. I too will look to the mistakes of those who have come before me and seek counsel from those who have experienced all that I am about to. I look to the experience with excitement and nerves but know that while it may be hard at times, that it is one of the most exciting experiences I will have.