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Andrea G.'s picture

Reflections

Submitted by Andrea G. on Tue, 04/29/2008 - 12:10am.
Looking back on this semester, the biggest change in my own thinking (and many others', having read the posts before mine) has been a shift away from always needing to have a clear-cut, definitive answer for all of my scientific questions.  It's become more and more clear over the course of this class that the field of neuroscience, as new and constantly changing as it is, holds very few (and maybe not even any) facts.  Despite being presented with concepts in introductory courses as if there was no argument about their validity, I've started to think differently about a lot of the things I've learned in my previous classes.

I've also really enjoyed being able to get a much broader sense of the field of neuroscience this semester.  With our small departments in the Bi-Co, there's not a huge diversity in research topics, and it's been enlightening to get a better idea of what's going on out in the larger world of academia.  It's been particularly interesting to look at topics I might have previously thought of as "fluffy" (e.g. love, education, morality) from a scientific perspective.  On some level, I've always known that any behavior must have some sort of neural basis, but it's not often that you think about how your brain affects your romantic relationships, at least beyond the hormonal level.

Finally, I've enjoyed being able to discuss topics in neuroscience with a group of people with similar academic backgrounds.  We never failed to fill an entire night with discussion, and it's been fascinating to see how differently we all approach various topics (and how, sometimes, we all come to the same conclusions despite this).  Thanks, everyone, for a great semester!

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