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Realizing How Smart You Are Not

February 29, 2012 by Jeanie Nguyen | 2 comments

Last week, I had a depressing blog about my experiences with the (unavoidable?) demon popularly termed Sophomore Slump. BUT! I’m back a week later to uplift your spirits, happily reporting that this week has taken a turn back to happy norms – or as happy as possible in the gloomy presence of midterms and deadlines. Although the workload conditions haven’t altered much, the difference is that I’m not hating existence and my professors are once again able to heighten my intrigue with binary numbers and Aspartic catalysts, can I get a WOOT WOOT?

I pinpointed the root of my slumpish nature as my anxiety revolving around my summer plans and the big possibility of not being immersed in the love of the people I spent my first 18 years of life with; the alternative would be a cultural and/or scientific immersion. So the moral of the story is: I’m a brat. Clearly, I don’t have much to say on this topic because it happens so rarely ….… but having rough weeks is actually a great experience because I wouldn’t appreciate the good as much if it were good all the time.

There were two prominent things that helped me cope with my disaster week – one of them being my upperclassman house, Mather! (You can’t say it without an exclamation mark!) As I’ve said in previous posts, I’ve been feeling pretty stagnant with regards to my Spanish learning curve which has catalyzed my desire to study abroad. But since I’m a 20 year old brat who still gets homesick, I’d never be able to stick it out as a foreigner for a semester, so I’d ideally like to go somewhere this summer where I can think, speak, live, breathe and blink Spanish. My resident tutor (freshmen here call it proctor, but it’s more widely known as RA: Resident Adviser, basically someone older/wiser who lives in the dorm and repels chaos) and current Spanish 50 class TF (Teaching Fellow) holds a “Spanish Table” every Wednesday during dinner time and last Wednesday was my first (but definitely not last) partake. Spanish Table gives students a chance to have a meal over Spanish conversation. All levels are welcomed and encouraged. The atmosphere is really chill and not intimidating at all! Thinking and speaking Spanish outside of the classroom, in a casual setting, really refueled my excitement about the possibilities of going abroad! Southern California, I’ll thank you endlessly for literally being one of the most influential factors for shaping who I am – from the way I dress, think and speak – but I’ll be okay if we don’t see much of each other this summer.

Studying at a college so far away from home and with seemingly endless possibilities has really made me feel like a globalized person – or maybe just a country-ized person? I’ll earn the term “globalized” if I do indeed go abroad this summer (I’m typing with my fingers crossed here). Harvard offers a plethora of opportunities I never thought existed and recently, its international opportunities have really caught my eye. Everything from Harvard offered programs to non-Harvard programs (campus organizations like OCS: Office of Career Services will work with you to apply and even transfer credit!) to professors who offer to connect you with organizations such as WHO: World Health Organization (my Bioethics professor, Dr. Daniel Wikler, offered to do so!) is just so extraordinarily unbelievable that I can’t wrap half my mind around it. Living and thriving in an environment with massive opportunity, filled with driven people is truly a humbling experience, which brings me back to the second thing that helped me during my disaster week: talking with my best friend from home.

It’s strange how, for me at least, the beginning of college came concomitant with living in a split dimension: your high school life vs. your college life. It’s easy to get caught up in your busy college life, but during sophomore slump weeks, you just want to escape and I accomplished that by catching up with my besties from middle/high school.

I’m pretty confident when I claim that the Sophomore Slump has been a nationwide epidemic because a handful of both friends from home and Harvard have had rough weeks recently. (I partially blame pre-Spring Break Fever) So my best friend from high school, Emily, and I were retrospectively examining our lives (some pretty profound stuff if I dare say so myself) and she mentioned how college is an incredibly humbling experience in the realm of grades which help you realize how smart you are not. I wholeheartedly agreed as I thought about all my premed classes and how students legitimately earn A’s without the curve – snaps AND kudos to everyone because one form of encouragement wouldn’t be enough. This makes it really easy for the majority of students to feel stupid and unworthy, but I’d like to point out that these two things are mutually exclusive. I’m not sure if that makes things better, BUT at least it’s true! I’d like to remedy this situation by telling myself (and you!) that college isn’t all about the grades – it’s about the experiences too. When I look back at college, I won’t remember the 100% I got on my organic chemistry final (not based on a true story), but what will indeed stand out is that time my roommates and I watched scary movie trailers all night for no reason.

My take-home message would be to relax! I feel like 149% of the prospective students I come into contact with (their parents representing the extra 49%) expect that Harvard students are the definition of perfection and that our records/transcripts/etc. should have their own exhibition in the Smithsonian, BUT this is so wrong! Your imperfections shape you just as much as your more admirable qualities and admissions officers realize that you, buddy, are a package deal. Harvard students have their fair share of imperfections and rough weeks – and that’s perfectly fine.

 

Preemptively striking, Housing Day – the epic day that freshmen find out which upperclassmen house they’ll be residing in for their remaining years as an undergraduate – is in just one week! See for yourself why Mather! can’t be said, but only exclaimed!
[kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/klZ9yDPxH_k” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /]

*props to Scott for helping me share Mather! Love

Snow White Lies

February 8, 2012 by Jeanie Nguyen | 2 comments

In sophisticated literature, the color white tends to symbolize kindness and purity – that’s why I’m so okay with telling myself white lies. Popular recent white lies to myself include (but are not limited to):

“Oh it’s just Shopping Week. I don’t have any work or books to even think about,”

“This is only the first actual week of school and Rush Week only comes once a year! There aren’t important psets (problem sets),”

and my personal favorite: “I promise this is my last dessert ever.”

                                                                     Going along with Scott’s dessert fantasies,

here are some homemade peanut butter cupcakes

crafty Thetas made in Mather’s (upperclassmen house) kitchen!

It’s pretty unfortunate that I forgot how easily the color white stains. These seemingly harmless white lies have darkened so much that they’ve almost cast a gloomy dark cloud following me everywhere…almost. Things have gotten real this week: my first 5 hour organic chemistry lab, my first frustrating physics pset, my first experiment at HDSL (Harvard Decision Science Lab). I really can’t solicit any sympathy because everyone else is at least just as busy. It’s during times like these (when I find myself doggy paddling just enough to stay afloat) that I think back to what a graduate student at the Harvard School of Public Health said to me: “There’s a difference between balancing and juggling.”

I think the main difference between these two activities is prioritization. When you’re physically balancing objects, you appear to be much calmer and poised. As impressive as juggling is, the image is definitely more hectic and things are much more easily dropped. I personally strive to achieve a balance where I’ll prioritize matters such as my interpersonal relationships with my family and friends, my academics, and my well-being over Facebook, Twitter, and scoring higher on Temple Run than all of my friends. Although the rankings of these priorities are flexible from hour to hour, the activities that have the most meaning in my life will never be dropped. Prioritization is also a great way to determine what is most important to you – in high school, I always did my chemistry homework first and that’s how I knew I liked moles more than beavers (#corny).

In my experiences at Harvard, I’ve heard many people declare that they’re too busy for X, Y & Z. To me, that’s just another way of indirectly saying X, Y & Z aren’t significant enough to prioritize for you. One thing that Harvard students definitely prioritize is breaks! The current hot topic on campus is activities during Spring Break and Summer Break. People are deciding where to go, what to do, and how to fund their interests/travels. There are TONS of options – i.e. study abroad and public interest internships. There’s also an amazing alumni networking tool called Crimson Compass if working in a specific location is of utmost importance to you. Navigating all the opportunities can most definitely be overwhelming so I must give a loud and proud shout out to the Office of Career Services (OCS) who holds frequent informational sessions and office-hour type drop-ins for students seeking guidance.

But for now, I’m prioritizing my organic chemistry pset. Cross your fingers for me and send some positive energy (in the form of protons??) my way! 😀

Shopping Part Two!

January 26, 2012 by Reid | 2 comments

Ciao a tutti!

Shopping week for second semester is almost over, with Study Cards (an official list of the courses you’re taking) being due tomorrow. Luckily, I’ve figured out my semester. I’ll be taking Intensive Italian (Italian Acd), Advanced French Grammar II (French 50), Expository Writing 20 (Expos), and a Freshman Seminar called “Pressing the Page: Making Art With Letters, Paper & Ink.” I’m very excited about this semester, especially for my seminar and Italian. They’ve been amazing so far, with Italian flying by every day and my printmaking seminar seeming too short, though it’s two hours on M/W! So far I’ve made calling cards and monogrammed notecards. Check out my first creation thus far!

 

I <3 Art

Anyways, get ready for a lot more artsy stuff this semester, to add to my arts list from a previous post. Seriously, this is a Liberal Arts college and my goal is to find out why.

Though all Freshmen do not have to take seminars and two languages (well, there is a language requirement, but I definitely loaded up on Romance Languages), everybody who graduates from Harvard College must take Expository Writing. Shaun talks about it from the other side of the bridge, having taken it already, but I have yet to experience this wonderful essay course. Actually, most people don’t like it, but I really love writing, and all the courses I’ve signed up for have high Q ratings (which means they’re good) and are in very close proximity to my dorm! Sweet graphic here:

Wow, Check it out! Canaday has the best location for all things Freshmen.

 

Anyways, these are the Expos courses I’ve sectioned for. A lot of them haven’t been offered yet, and are brand new, so I thought I’d give them a chance, even though it is risky. Imagining Animals does sound pretty interesting, though.

Location, Location, Location. (Okay, and time/subject.)

If I get sectioned into a M/W 11:00-12:00 time slot, I’ll be having bagged lunch twice a week for the next semester! Good thing Harvard offers them for all students, all the time. Also, our dining services have become quite interesting, with HUDS reintroducing the Korean Barbecue night. Let me tell you, that Kimchi was spicy! After I enjoyed my Korean dinner today with my roommate, I met a few of my bandmates and headed up to the SOCH for our first practice of the second semester. We’re playing a few songs and a lot of transition material at Harvard Thinks Big, which is a very popular set of mini-lectures hosted in Sanders Theater. Last year’s information can be found here. It was awesome seeing everyone again, even though the rehearsal was short and the walk to the quad was a bit chilly. If you’ve forgotten about my band, check out this link! Being part of my amazing mini-community was definitely the best part of my first semester, because it helped me to transition into college life much more smoothly.

Whee!!! Random Picture of Cambridge!

 

Another super awesome thing in my life right now continues to be The Crimson! I realized that last semester was a ton of fun, and I had the best time taking photos of sports and arts, specifically for the Fifteen Minutes magazine. Over break, I took a lot of photos, and they have definitely improved, to the point where I am proud of my photography skills. Soon I will be monitoring compers as a Junior Editor, chillin’ with them as they experience that which I’ve just done. Tomorrow, I’m covering the Harvard-Yale hockey game, and my family is coming up to watch with me. I am also “schmoozing” with some peeps (editors/my superiors/great people) in order to be (hopefully) elected Arts Photo Exec. That basically means a lot of mini meetings in order to hold a higher position than my current status. I’ll update you when I hear back, but for now, cross your fingers for me!

Arts and Sports mixed together!

The weather has been uncannily warm as of late, which definitely freaks me out a little bit; climate change is upon us, and it’s been pretty evident here in Cambridge. Hopefully it cools down, so I can use the really great skating rink on the Science Center lawn. (What? Harvard has a free skating rink? Why yes, we do.) Most of the time though, I’m inside, doing my homework so that I don’t get behind. I definitely don’t want to make that mistake again, because it creates a lot of unnecessary stress.  I’ve been doing a bit of walking recently, because I’m auditioning through  Common Casting  for Legally Blonde and Hair (the musical), and I have to hike up to the Aggassiz Theater (also home of the visitor center), Loeb Theater, and Farkas Theater. I really missed auditioning, so this process has been a blast! But I should get back to the pile of work on my desk….

Busy busy

 

Okay! I hope you’ve enjoyed reading my post, and for those applying to Harvard, these next few months might be a little worrisome, but try to keep the admissions process in the back of your head and enjoy your last part of high school. You’ll end up wherever you need to be.

 

Signing off

-Reid

 

Black Monday Shopping

January 25, 2012 by Jeanie Nguyen | 5 comments

Sometimes optimization correlates with maximization. This was the principle I used when booking my flight back to Cambridge at the beginning of this Spring semester. After spending the majority of my J-term (January term/Winter Break) in Vietnam, I still wanted to be able to come back to campus and rub it in EVERYONE’S face that my break consisted of soaking up glorious California sunshine. That’s why I arrived the Sunday night before the first day of class. How did I have time to catch up with my ultimate bestie, unpack, and determine the future of my semester all while maintaining a low stress level??

Every semester begins with an angelic (or hectic!) week of Shopping, creatively termed Shopping Week, where students have the ultimate freedom to sit in – or walk out – of classes in order to evaluate courses as they see fit. Professors can’t assign homework and there aren’t any (discussion) sections or five hour labs to consume your evenings. It’s literally the perfect way to ease back into academics due to the lack of pressure to commit. In fact, the majority of kids on campus don’t know what classes they’ll be enrolling in for the semester. I’ve extrapolated this fact from the nifty course shopping tool that connects with students’ Facebook.

It definitely felt like everyone was shopping into the wee hours of the night – organizing, scheduling, and mapping the most efficient routes in order to snatch that golden seat! The hype is well deserved because there’s a plethora of engaging and wonderfully taught classes (don’t get me wrong – you’ll also run into a handful of classes you’ll dread with professors you don’t want at your birthday party) and only a handful of semesters to finesse them into.

I only had some light shopping to do since sophomores are required to declare their concentration (major) during their fall semester as well as organize a list of intended classes that will fulfill your requirements. I also anticipated my laziness and tried to counter it before I left for Vietnam 🙂

These are the classes I’ll be (most likely) taking this semester:

Spanish 50 – Writing and Performance: An advanced language course designed to strengthen and develop competence in written expression. Close reading of texts in literary and non-literary genres will help students refine personal style. The performance of short excerpts of plays, combined with advanced work on oral expression and phonetics, will help students increase their fluency and ease of expression.

Hopefully this will prepare me even more for my summer abroad…knock on wood…keep your fingers crossed!

Ethical Reasoning 24 – Bioethics: Bioethics is the study of ethical issues arising in efforts to maintain and restore health, and, more broadly, with charting humankind’s future in an era of both technological advances and unmet need. We will try to reason our way through moral dilemmas that pit health against freedom, prevention against rescue, and the claims of those with competing needs when life itself hangs in the balance. The course will emphasize ethical issues involving health that arise at the global and population levels, particularly those involving peoples and regions with the greatest burden of disease.

Although Gen-Eds are typically not respected by most students, I’m really glad Harvard’s liberal arts educational system gives me a little push out of my comfort zone and encourages me to take classes that I wouldn’t normally enroll in. Most of the fun facts I drop in conversation stem from these Gen-Ed gems!

Chemistry 27 – Organic Chemistry of Life: Chemical principles that govern the processes driving living systems are illustrated with examples drawn from biochemistry, cell biology, and medicine. The course deals with organic chemical reactivity (reaction mechanisms, structure-reactivity relationships), with matters specifically relevant to the life sciences (chemistry of proteins, nucleic acids, drugs, natural products, cofactors, signal transduction), and with applications of chemical biology to medicine and biotechnology.

Pushing through my second semester of orgo…wish me luck because I’ll need TONS of it!

Physical Science 3 – Electromagnetism, Circuits, Waves, Optics: This course is an introduction to electromagnetism, digital information, waves, optics and sound. Topics covered include: electric and magnetic fields, electrical potential, circuits, simple digital circuits, wave propagation in various media, microscopy, sound and hearing. The course will draw upon a variety of applications to the biological sciences and will use real-world examples to illustrate many of the physical principles described. This course is part of an integrated introduction to the physical sciences intended for students who plan to pursue a concentration in the life sciences and/or satisfy pre-medical requirements in Physics.

I absolutely avoided all physics in high school, but I found myself really enjoying Physical Science 2 so I’m really looking forward to this class! It’s VERY well organized and I’m obsessed with the professor (Logan McCarty). Here’s a student review on the Q guide of Physical Science 2: There’s a lot of infrastructure to help out if you’re having trouble, Logan is great, Melissa is hilarious, and the problem sets and midterms are manageable. The final was tougher than the midterms though so watch out.

Things I Miss, Things I Don’t

November 27, 2011 by Reid | 1 comment

After spending a lovely few days in Vermont for Thanksgiving, I returned to campus today. This is what I have learned: I miss a lot of aspects of my old life, but I also am glad to be in this new environment; in fact, my life at Harvard is easier in some ways! Here are some mini-lists, interspersed with some recent photography!

 

Things I miss:

1. Fresh _____ (food, towels, air, sheets, silverware, etc.) There is nothing like the clean air of Vermont, and living in a city is quite the contrast. While my lungs miss the fresh air, my skin misses the fresh sheets and towels. This could easily be solved by increasing the frequency of my laundry runs, and has been ameliorated by the smuggling of ANOTHER towel from home to my dorm room. Laundry is normally not my top priority, but I’m not lazy enough to have it done by Harvard Student Agencies (although that’s offered, for those of you who are repulsed by dirty clothes). As for food and silverware, this is another problem that I could probably solve. Although Annenberg is very good for the number of people it serves, I miss the fresh veggies and fruits that my mom would bring home every day. Shaw’s is just a short trip by T, and I technically could go out and purchase some delicacies for my fresh food fix. (For silverware, please see ‘laundry’ above.)

 

2. My old friends!

This is not Harvard’s fault; it is just part of growing up. I had to start a new life at college, and that means losing a lot of contact with my friends, who are at colleges such as Middlebury, Denver, and Queens or living and working across the country. I miss them a TON, especially my lovely friends Tucker and Georgie, who happen to be chillin’ on the  West Coast. This problem, too, will be solved by J-term: FLYING TO LAX!

 

3. Driving!

It’s really, really fun to drive on dirt roads. If you’ve never done it before, you’re missing out.

 

4. My family

Okay, so I miss my mom. And my dad. And my stepdad, my sister, my half-sister, my dog, and my cat. But video chatting on iChat is the best! It was awesome catching up with them all over Thanksgiving break, as well as an extension of this family in the form of cousins, uncles, and aunts.

 

5. Vermont itself!

I hail from the best state in the Union, no doubt. We have maple syrup, cider, and leaves: you know that. We also have COWS, TREES, MOUNTAINS, FLANNEL, TRACTORS, MY HOUSE, MUD SEASON, STICK SEASON, 6 MONTHS OF WINTER, THE ONLY CAPITAL WITHOUT A MCDONALDS, THE BEST SWIMMING HOLES, GORGEOUS RIVERS AND LAKES, AND NOT THAT MANY PEOPLE!!! Maybe you can tell that ILOVERMONT.

 

Things I Don’t Really Miss That Much:

1. Driving

Okay, so it may be slightly contradictory, but driving isn’t always the best. Not paying for gas, worrying about speeding tickets or about where you’re going to stay the night in poor weather is very pleasing. As much as cars are fun, they are also a pain and a drain (of cash), and I’d rather be outside walking in the cold air than trying to drive with these crazy Boston drivers!

 

2. Living at Home

Don’t get me wrong: I have the best house in the entire world, the best family I could ever ask for, and live in the best state. Here at Harvard, though, I don’t have to cook my own meals, do my dishes, worry about making a fire when I get home (yay heating!), share the dessert, feed the dog, or drive an hour to find a town! The Boston area is incredible; there’s everything you need, from British candy at Cardullo’s, to hot-pot in Chinatown… it’s really the perfect city for me, and not too overwhelming for a country girl.

 

3. The Endless Winter

I am a huge snowboarding/skiing enthusiast. Vermont is a great place to do both of those things, but by the time March rolls around, it’s getting a little old. The temperate climate of Cambridge (comparatively, to Northern New England) is really, really nice. For example: there was 6 inches of packing snow in Vermont over break, and it was about 35 degrees most of the time. In Cambridge, there is no snow, it’s around 48 degrees, and spring comes a lot earlier. Way to go, Massachusetts! I really dig this weather!

 

4. My Old Classes

Though my four courses may or may not be kicking my butt right now, they’re waaaay better than the eight I had to take in high school. Having a bajillion courses to choose from is something very novel to me, so I spend a preposterous amount of my free time drooling over all of my options. (Yes, I have already decided on my second-semester courses, but that remains a surprise until I finalize my schedule!) Harvard is great because you can take any class you want to and be guaranteed an incredible professor, as long as you check the handy-dandy Q guide (rating system) to see just what you’d be getting yourself into. There’s nothing quite like the level of academics here, and I sure am glad to have access to all this learnin’!

 

5. Wondering Just What To Do Tonight…

I am now at college, where the number of people in my class exceeds the number of people in my town. Therefore, there are plenty of things going on, which can be seen here. Examples of my week ahead: Eleganza (a fashion show) fundraiser, Opps–Kroks jam (super great a cappella groups), band rehearsal, Little Shop of Horrors, and House Formals. There is no way to become bored here! One would truly have to try in order to do nothing.

 

 

So that’s it! School’s great, home’s great, but they each’ve their own pros and cons. I am very excited to go home after finals, but I think I’ll be even more excited to come back to start second semester. (Yes, this is a little premature….) Check out some of my photos of Vermont!

 

Vermont over Thanksgiving

 

 

Snowy Snowy Porch

 

 

Cider Making! Yummmmm

 

 

Hockey vs Dartmouth!

Add a Little Spring to Your Fall

November 16, 2011 by Jeanie Nguyen | 6 comments

The theme of last weekend was: The Future! So it’s pretty safe to say a concomitant theme would be: Hot Mess.

Most colleges ask freshmen to state their major at the beginning of their undergraduate journey. However, Harvard knows that its students’ interests are synonymous to windy tornadoes that could really take us anywhere. Meaning, Harvard will nod and smile reassuringly when we throw around intended concentrations (AKA majors) during our freshman year, but will only take official documentation during our (supposedly wiser) sophomore year. Throughout this process of declaring our concentrations, sophomores will meet with both concentration and academic advisers to develop a list of classes we intend to take during the rest of our majestic time as an undergraduate. All this pondering and planning really puts things in perspective because you can realistically chronicle required/desired classes for your concentration, secondary, citation, and even indicate that you plan to study abroad! SNAPS to academic clarity and a sense of purpose!! … at least for now…

But let’s discuss a topic that isn’t as deathly intimidating as your long-term-future life plans. Let’s talk about your relatively-shorter-term future life plans!

By now, it’s undeniable that the best season, summer, has ended and autumn is in full swing.

Lucky residents of Mather, an upperclassmen house, get a friendly reminder of East Coast beauty every time they step outside.

And let’s just skim over the perpetually frosty winter season and move right along into spring – more specifically Spring Break! As a person who strives to radiate California, I imagine tanning, beach volleyball, and lemonade as three necessary factors for a perfect Spring Break. However, college serves as a perfect time to not only redefine yourself academically, but also redefine what trivial things, like Spring Break, can mean to you. Last year, during my first Spring Break as a college student, I traveled to New York City with a group of Harvard students I didn’t know in order to volunteer with God’s Love We Deliver and tour medical schools. After this week, I left New York on a bus back to Harvard with the same group of Harvard students who were no longer strangers, but instead great friends!

Phillips Brooks House Association (PBHA) (basically the Harvard version of Key Club International) is the altruistic heart of Harvard College and one of the many beautiful programs they run is called Alternative Spring Break (ASB). Last year, I participated in the ASB New York Premed trip which actually convinced me to commit to the premed track after being hazy for what felt like a lifetime. ASB trips not only foster friendship due to the inherent intimacy of a small group travelling, but also is the perfect harmony of productivity and fun! I’m definitely obsessed with ASB and that’s one of the reasons why I applied to direct the trip this year. I was partnered up with another sophomore to direct the trip and I certainly cannot verbally express my excitement about the great potential the trip has! Although the trip won’t occur until March 2012, paper applications have closed and we spent the long weekend interviewing over 70 fantastic applicants! Although these three loooong days of interviewing really cut into my physics midterm and biology paper writing time, I just can’t contain my excitement for this trip!! Maybe I’m just REALLY excited for The Game (at Yale this year). GO HARVARD!!! YAY IVY LEAGUE CHAMPS!!!

Round Two… ding!

September 27, 2011 by Kate Meakem | 6 comments

So here begins my second year at Harvard, but the great thing is that I’m even more excited than I was to start my first year!  After much shopping around (shopping is the term we use to describe the process of choosing classes), I have found four classes that I am super psyched about.

The first one is History 1224: Britain Since 1760, a class taught by the very popular Harvard professor Maya Jasanoff.  Her teaching style is fantastic (she’s all about telling the story), and so far I feel like I’m learning a lot.  What I know about British history, I either know from the American perspective (think French and Indian War, the American Revolution, the War of 1812, etc.), or I know from AP Euro, which had a greater focus on Continental Europe.  So it has been really fascinating to learn specifically about a country whose legacy has extended into so much of our world today!  Plus, I’m a huge History geek (and potential History concentrator), so I’m all about this class.

My second class is Science of the Living Systems 20, which is an introductory Psychology course that also fulfills a Gen Ed.  [Just a quick blurb to catch you up to speed, “Gen Ed’s,” or General Education Requirements, are part of the liberal arts education at Harvard College.  There are eight categories of classes across a range of subjects that must be fulfilled in order to graduate.  The system is set up to give you a more broad education.  So far, I’ve really enjoyed it.]  This course is offered every semester, but the teacher changes depending on which semester you take the class.  This semester Professor Daniel Gilbert, who is an amazing lecturer, is teaching the class!  As if the inner workings of the mind weren’t already super interesting, Gilbert makes you really appreciate all of the complexities of the brain and how they are linked to our behavior.  Also, sections (which are small classes that are broken up from the larger lecturers to provide more individualized learning) are fun experiments like tasting different foods!  What more could you want?  The only thing is that I’ve heard the exams are hard… so I’ll have to keep you all posted.

My third class is Math 1a, which is the equivalent to AP Calculus AB.  While I took that class in high school, that was a whole two years ago, and my non-math oriented brain just has not retained the information.  To remedy this situation, I figured I would retake the class in hopes of expanding my knowledge of Calculus… whoooo (not).  Anyway, it hasn’t been too bad… I’m just really not a math person.  If anyone would like to help me (especially if you happen to be cute, smart, handsome, and funny), please let me know! 😉

Sanders Theater -- home of English 154 and many of the other large classes at Harvard. Just picture it minus the adults, plus a lot of college kids. (Picture courtesy of Google Images)

My final class is English 154: Literature and Sexuality, taught by Professor Matthew Kaiser, the most snarky and hilarious professor that I have had the privilege of taking a class under.  His lectures cannot be beat.  We meet in Sanders Theater (featured above), sort of the bastion Harvard intellectualism, and talk about the history of sexual thought and attitudes as it is portrayed through literature.  Interpret that how you will.  As you can imagine the literature ranges from Freud and Foucault to de Sade and everything in between.  To say the class is provocative would be an understatement, but it is certainly fun!

And that’s about all for me right now.  We’re moving into the first round of midterms here at Harvard, which means paper, paper, paper, exam.  Yay!  To add to my stress levels, Theta Fall Formal is coming up, and I need to find a date.  GAHHH! #ranting.  Hope everyone is doing well!

Reflections

August 30, 2011 by Kate Meakem | 3 comments

Hey everybody!  As summer is coming to an end, and a new school year is on the verge of beginning, I thought I would take this time to reflect on my freshman year and the new sophomore year to come.

So to start, freshman year… wow.  That’s really the word that sums it up the best: wow.  Going into the year, I honestly had no idea what to expect.  I mean, sure, I thought maybe I would get some cool roommates, make some new friends, take some fun courses, learn some stuff, but I never could have foreseen the nine months ahead.

During my first year at Harvard, I met some of the most talented, hard-working, charismatic, brilliant, and interesting people I have ever encountered.  There were kids who already had patents under their names, kids who had made speeches in front of thousands of people, kids who had organized huge charity events that raised thousands of dollars, kids (*cough, cough* my roommate) who could wake up at three in the morning with only six hours before a paper was due and speed write twelve pages that still earned them A’s.

I know you’re probably thinking, well, what do you expect?  It IS Harvard, after all.  And I suppose you’d be right.  But the thing that struck me was how down to earth everyone was.  I arrived on campus knowing that I would meet extraordinary students with extraordinary talents and achievements, and feeling pretty inadequate.  I mean, the thing I was most proud of was being the Editor-in-Chief of my high school yearbook.  But the cool thing about going to a school with a less than 6% acceptance rate is that there is a level of respect, especially among freshmen, for even getting in.  Everyone’s reasoning is that if you got into Harvard, then there must be something truly special about you.  And it was really awesome to spend long nights my freshman year in Annenberg dining hall listening to people’s stories and learning about what makes them who they are.

Me loving my freshman year at Harvard!

Beyond that, I never expected to make some of the best friends of my life, join a sorority, head a volunteer organization, write a blog on my life that people actually want to read, and all of the other things I’ve gotten myself into.  Freshman year blew my expectations out of the water, and I hope sophomore year will do the same.   To answer a commenter’s question from a few months ago – how have I best utilized the amazing school I go to and made sure to not take for granted the amazing opportunities I’ve been given – I’d have to say that I have tried to get to know a new person everyday, to learn something new about the people I already know, and to find a new way to care about those who surround me.  This world is made up of the people in it.  Each person has a story.  Each person is the way he/she is because of a sequence of events that have been linked together to form the chain of his/ her life.  And I think it is important to listen to and care about the people we meet, whether they are on or off of Harvard’s campus.  It is through listening to other people that I learn the most about the world and life in it.  Everyone deserves to be heard.  And that is what I hope to continue to do as I start my sophomore year!

Thoughts on my sophomore year:

  • What will my concentration be???? AHHHHH!
  • Will I enjoy living all the way in the quad?
  • I need to find a job…
  • Where do I buy a bike?
  • I’m so, so, so excited to be back and to see everyone!
  • Oops!  I’d better unpack!

Graduation/I’m On My Way

August 4, 2011 by Alissa D'Gama | 4 comments

I can’t believe it is already August! My apologies for not posting sooner, but I have a very long wrap-up post for all of you, and I may occasionally post to let you know what post-college life is like.

To finish up my previous posts, I started junior year excited to pursue an MD/PhD and registered for the SAT of medical school: the MCAT. Most of junior year was spent juggling classes and lab with studying, and I was ridiculously happy to be over with the MCAT when I took it at the beginning of reading period in May. From there I jumped straight into applications, which are centrally organized through AMCAS. The summer between junior and senior year I was trying to get data for my senior thesis in lab and writing draft after draft of essays for my primary application (which gets sent to all medical schools) and my secondary applications (which are specific to each medical school). In general, MD/PhD applicants follow a similar timeline to MD applicants, but we have more letters of recommendation (including a letter from every lab we have every worked in) and generally more essays, with the extra essays focused on our research and why we want to get two degrees and stay in school for a really long time. We also have longer interview days – I had anywhere from six to twelve interviews over a two to three day period per school, so fall of senior year I was lucky if I was able to make it to class (I ended up missing over forty days of school, and spent a lot of time getting work done on plane flights).

As I waited to hear back from programs (although some MD/PhD programs are rolling, many wait until march to release all of their spots as each school as so few spots) I wrote and rewrote my senior thesis, had it bound at kinko’s (which is open 24 hours!) and turned it in to the MCB Office. The process of writing my thesis was the most intellectually satisfying experience of my time as an undergraduate, and I am very grateful to my PI and postdoc for the time they put into mentoring me—I learned so much about neuroscience and kinase signaling pathways, but also about science as a profession. After turning my thesis in, I had the opportunity to revisit some of the MD/PhD programs I was deciding between, meet with professors I have admired throughout college, and hang out with the friends I had made during the application process. And then it was time for senior week and graduation!

My roommates and I at the Picnic! (courtesy Cara ’11)

Graduated!

It doesn’t feel too different to have graduated from college just yet but I will definitely miss Mather Dining Hall and not having to cook for myself! Of course, I didn’t go very far—I am now an MD/PhD candidate in the Health Sciences and Technology Program at Harvard Medical School/MIT (and all but one of my roommates and most of my blockmates and friends are still in the Cambridge/Boston area). This summer we started off the program with a summer course and a graduate school lab rotation, and in less than two weeks I will be getting my first white coat!

I was so lucky to graduate from college and be able to start the next phase of my life that I am incredibly excited about, and I hope the class of 2015 has a wonderful first year at Harvard College—it may not seem like it now, but the next four years will go by fast, so do your best to make the most of them!

If you have any questions about the MD or MD/PhD route, feel free to contact me at Alissa_D’Gama@hms.harvard.edu (Yes, my email has an underscore and an apostrophe!)

The Scientist Part 2

April 30, 2011 by Alissa D'Gama | 1 comment

As promised, here is part two of how I decided what to do with my life. Sophomore year was definitely the hardest in terms of classes. Because most into and mid-level life sciences concentration classes have lecture+section+lab I had 25 hours of class per week balanced with working in lab and participating in extracurriculars. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed the classes I took—the classes started going deeper into the how and why of things, and I found out that subjects I thought would be scary (organic chemistry) were actually a lot of fun. In particular, my MCB and organic chemistry classes showed me how research done at the bench could be translated to the bedside and vice versa. What really solidified my decision to pursue an MD/PhD was what happened after sophomore year, when I had the opportunity to spend the summer in Tokyo, Japan through the Harvard Summer School Program at the RIKEN Brain Science Institute.

It was really nice to sleep in a little during the summer – I would normally get up between 9 and 10 am and eat a melon bread from the 7-11 across the street (7-11 in Tokyo is like the 24-7 CVS in Harvard Square. It has everything!) along with a glass of orange juice (Vitamin C!). Then I walked the five minutes from the international house to the central research building where I worked in the Lab for Alzheimer’s Disease studying potential drugs. While I was at lab, the cleaning staff would not only bring me fresh towels and empty my trash, but they made my bed! It was like living in a hotel, especially with the tiny bars of wrapped hand soap.

The weekends had me armed with a subway map as I ventured out to explore Tokyo – going hiking amid the ruins of ancient Japanese castles, watching fireworks during the Hanabi festival with over 900,000 other people (yes, there were really that many people there and we had to get there very early to get a spot!), making okonomiyaki — which looks like an English pancake but is filled with meat, vegetables, and cheese, getting woken up by an earthquake or two, and taking a nine hour overnight bus ride to the temples in Kyoto (including The Golden Temple, which is literally plates with gold). The coolest thing I experienced were tornado potatoes – the street vendors took a knife and cut around the potato in swirls, then put in on a stick and dipped it in melted cheese. So good.

Tornado Potatoes at the Hanabi Fireworks Festival with Stella ’10!

When I arrived at Narita Airport at the beginning of June, I only knew how to say “Good afternoon” in Japanese and how to eat ramen with chopsticks. By the time I left in August, I could have a basic conversation with my lab members and had discovered that the ramen in Japan is much better than the fifty-cent packs from CVS – in fact, I even had “Spanish-style” ramen with melted cheese and tomatoes at a café in Yotsuya. One of the great things about Harvard is the opportunity it provides students to go abroad during both the summer and the academic year to learn about other cultures. Back on campus, I have continued to research in labs on campus and have explored other cultures through Core and General Education classes that take me from the courts of Florence to the streets of London. I also arrived back in Boston with a renewed excitement for research and the decision to pursue an MD/PhD.

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