My experience with education has been very little—and by that I mean the size of the actual schools.

I’ve never been one for large institutions where it is easy to slip through the cracks.  I started small and stuck with it.  First a tiny Catholic school with an eighth grade graduating class of almost thirty.  Then, a private college preparatory high school with almost sixty graduating.  And here I am now, at a college boasting less students than most large high schools have in one grade level.  In terms of numbers I’ve progressed, but I often wonder whether I paid a big price for these small favors.  
    

One of the papers that struck me most was the second paper about Learning Languages and the ways in which one learns and reciprocates a language. For me, throughout my life the acquisition of new languages has always been very difficult. I struggled in middle school with Spanish and although I did well in Spanish in college overall and have completed my language requirement, I admit that for the amount of time I spent studying Spanish I probably should have been better. The same is true for Latin which, despite how many hours of studying I put fourth I was never quite successful in this discipline. This article also had me thinking about the ways in which I was instructed in these languages. Latin class was time spent only memorizing grammatical information.

I found these four papers in Neurobiology very different yet inextricably linked. Although the subjects inevitably varied- from making up the mind to learning languages, to the perception of different cultures to the idea of "I" functions, these papers all dealt with science in some aspect and the conscience and un-conscious part of the human brain. In the paper about making up the mind and not being able to trust one's brain anymore because it creates images of the world as we know it was both enlightening and a tad scary. It reminded me of humans losing th ability to control what they perceive since our brains automatically do this for us. Therefore we do not really have a say, so to speak, in what we see and how we perceive it since this is performed by our un-conscious mind.

After reading through four papers from the Bryn Mawr College Biology course Neurobiology and Behavior (found under "Starting Points"), it struck me how much humans and human interaction has to do with the world of science, particularly that of neuroscience.  Science is largely seen as a vast expanse where cold, hard facts and calculations reign supreme while creative juices dry up.  Scientists are not perceived as human, or even capable of feeling emotion regarding what they are studying. However, these papers demonstrated that science can apply to infinite numbers of traditionally "nonscientific" fields. Language, religion and racial profiling are just a few.

Summer Work: 2010
 
Introduction for the Summer Science Institute: Personal Background & Goals for the Summer
Sudoku Journey...
Reactions to Neurobiology Papers
Personal Experience Relating to Neurobiology Papers
Course Commentary:Biology 202 
The Three Doors of Serendip: Comments

Introduction

Reaction to 'Neurobiology and Behavior' Papers

Educational Experience--"Where We Went Wrong: A True Story"

The Sudoku Experiment

Comments on "The Three Doors of Serendip"

Commentary on Neurobiology and Behavior's Syllabus and Structure

Religion=Science?

If you asked me four months ago what I would be doing this summer, chances are you would receive one of three responses:

1) "It's only January! There's two feet of snow on the ground and you're asking me about summer?"

2) "I'm not sure yet, but ideally I would like a paid internship in Philly."

3) "Well I applied for a bunch of journalism internships..."

Note that what I'm actually doing is not found in any of the above responses. Go figure. However, I'm more excited about this summer's current potential than any other plans I could have made. 

    My name is Jenna Pfeiffer and I am a rising junior at Bryn Mawr College. I am an anthropology major and a biology minor. Upon entering Bryn Mawr I was certain I was majoring in biology, yet as I studied anthropology it dawned on me that I could study both disciplines simultaneously as each focused on human life in unique ways. I am incredibly excited to start working with Dr. Grobstein and Mr. Wilfred Franklin as well as my peers at the K-12 Pre-College Science Education Fellowship at Bryn Mawr College because I think it is a valuable outlet to studying the ways in which students learn about science and mathematics as well as their responses to both disciplines.