Our trip to UCSD was tiring, but it was also inspiring. To put it simply, there were different parts of me having different reactions. My left brain, metaphorically speaking because we learned in biology that the right and left brain characteristics are subjective, was nervous. It told me when I walked through the lab with all sorts of mice brains being examined for radioactive kisspeptin, when I sat down to study in Geisel library and saw the length of surrounding college students’ material compared to mine, and when I interrogated the HTHCV alumni about the shift from high school to college, that I was not ready. However, my right brain was exhilarated! So many flyers were being pushed into my face, I immediately saw organizations that I wanted to join, and as I looked around, I realized that the work that people were doing, no matter how stressful it may have looked to me, was work that they had signed up for voluntarily. Even though Dr. Kauffman’s microscopes were showing me neurotransmitters that have little to do with the things I hope to study in college, looking through the lense at those little glowing dots was looking at the stars. I could imagine to have been looking at any of the millions of constellations that could be my life in a little over a year. I am both nervous and exhilarated. College is going to be a change. My entire life will have new responsibilities, but also new freedoms. I push myself now to practice taking care of myself as much as I can, but in the back of my mind I feel a sense of calm and assurance that everything will be okay. I know I can keep myself as motivated as the people I witnessed on campus, I trust myself.
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Since I started junior year, I have felt like Harry Potter’s uncle. Not because I am fat and British, but because no matter what I do, I am always getting mail from schools! I can’t stop it, colleges are coming at me from every direction at every hour of the day. None of the emails I get really interest me. They all claim to be some liberal heaven with cutting edge everything and all of the diversity in the world. I’m not sure where I’d like to go to college. I want somewhere that allows me to feel like I am on a bustling, lively campus but also has beliefs in equitable education. I am not fond of the idea of sitting in a lecture hall with 500 students, even though I will probably need to be, so for now I’m looking into schools with a more “progressive” take on undergraduate learning.
My favorite schools so far have been UC Santa Cruz and Stanford. I love UCSC because I know I would be happy there. A lot of family lives in the area but I am a good distance from home, it’s on the beach but also in the forest, there is lots to do that doesn’t involve consumerism, and the school itself is beautiful. As for the education, they are split into colleges so it might not be as bad as, say, UCLA. It’s not very prestigious meaning the people there won’t be all from top SAT tutor, La Jolla type neighborhoods. It seems like an environment I would thrive in. However, if I were to get into Stanford, I would probably go there instead. I don’t like Palo Alto, my life would probably be much more study intensive, but the actual education would be much better. I really like that Stanford is a pioneer in teaching techniques like the 8 ways of thinking that they use instead of having general education classes. They find ways to make things interdisciplinary and then give each class some labels for which way they push a student to learn. By the time you graduate, you have to have taken one of each of these 8 ways. This means I would have more autonomy over what classes I take! I love having autonomy. It just worries me that I’d get too stressed out or be surrounded by people I can’t relate to. They do not have a very large Latino population, nor is the school inexpensive. I’d have to take lots of weekend trips back down to Santa Cruz! |
What is this?Hi everyone! This is my junior year blog. Here you will find weekly reflections up until the completion of my junior internship. I hope you enjoy this inside look on my learning! Archives
June 2018
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