Autumn 2018
This quarter has been incredibly hectic, but I predicted that would be the case. I am taking 18 credits, holding 3 jobs, maintaining my active member status in Pi Phi, and trying to maintain my social life. This quarter I took psych 488, stress and coping, honors 230, the psychology of the educational experience, philosophy 120, introduction to logic, as well as honors 100 (finally), and psychology 350, which is the departmental honors seminar. In addition to classes I am working as an undergraduate tutor for Dr. Lauren Graham in her psych 202 lecture. I have really loved getting TA-type experience, especially since I love the biopsychology course content so much. I am going to continue this job next quarter, and also TA her psych 222 course (stress and health). Besides my attendance in lecture, working as an undergraduate tutor entails leading CLUE sessions each week. I love teaching the content and making worksheets for everyone, but some weeks it is harder to find the time to do this than others. Overall, though, I wouldn’t trade my experiences with Lauren for the world—I feel like they’re really helping to prepare me for graduate school, and spending time with Lauren brightens my day every day. My other two jobs are slightly less exciting. I first got a job chauffeuring for a family in the area, and then I got a job working as an assistant in the ArtsUW ticket office on campus. I love both of these jobs, so even though they take away time from getting schoolwork done, I am happy to do them.
My most difficult class this quarter has definitely been my educational psychology honors class. It isn’t really what I expected it to be, but overall I think this has been a good challenge, and has helped me to grow as a student and person. It’s been an interesting experience speaking with the instructor about my challenges with the course, and hearing his perspective on what these challenges may mean—whether there is something we can change about the class to alleviate some anxiety, or if they are just struggles that are inevitable, and should be used as a learning opportunity. Dr. Cooper has been insanely understanding of my high stress levels and has made a HUGE effort to make the class more accommodating. Despite my stress about the class, I have really enjoyed the course content, and I feel like some of my most meaningful work this quarter has come out of my difficulties in this class. One project we completed recently was a group project where we had to propose a hypothetical research project in the form of a fake grant proposal. Although this task was daunting, the final product is work that I am very proud of.
My favorite class by far this quarter was stress and coping, for two reasons: it is taught by Lauren Graham, and I find the content very educationally fulfilling. I have recently moved towards an interest in behavioral neuroscience as something that I could potentially research in graduate school, and this class is definitely applicable to that vein of research. As we learn how stress can affect the biology of the brain, we also learn what we can do to help alleviate the negative side effects. This is not only relevant to future research interests, but also to my well-being as a stressed-out college student. Almost everything that we talk about has been relevant to my life in some way, and it’s reassuring to learn that there are ways I can combat any long-lasting negative effects of the stress I am experiencing now. The content from this class is primarily the same as the content that will be taught in stress and health, the second class that I am TA-ing next quarter, so I will get repeated exposure to it to help encode it into my long-term memory.
Moving forward, lots of things will be happening. By the end of this quarter I am expected to have found a lab and a mentor to guide me through my departmental honors thesis. I am meeting with a potential mentor in the next week, and I am really hoping that he takes me as his honors student, because his lab perfectly matches what I hope to study in graduate school. He is researching brain mechanisms in reinforcement learning and trying to identify how his results match models of reinforcement learning in psychology. Even though I have had previous exposure to research settings, I think that this experience would be especially useful, since it would expose me to working with machines like fMRI and help me get a hands-on understanding of the subjects that I want to study, rather than just information from a textbook. Once I find a lab to conduct my research in, I will begin writing my thesis paper to turn in and present at the end of next year.
My trajectory for the rest of college has also shifted quite a bit since the end of last quarter. I am no longer pursuing a minor in law, societies and justice because I have realized during this quarter just how busy I am with what I already have going on, and I didn’t want to fill my schedule even more. I wasn’t quite sure where this quarter would take me, since I didn’t know where I would be working or how I would feel about living in the Pi Phi house, but I think all transitions have been for the better. My jobs are all very flexible with a student’s schedule, my course load makes sense for the graduate degree that I want to pursue, and living in my sorority house has definitely given me the true college experience (and lots of new friends). I am excited to get rid of all the question marks surrounding next quarter, like what lab I will finish my departmental honors thesis in and what it will be like when I take over as Pi Phi’s VPMD (vice president of member development), but I think I’m on a very good trajectory right now—one that is good for both my academic life and social life.
My best friend Natalie and her friend Natasha came to visit from Boulder for the CU game this year! This experience was totally new for me, since NYU didn't have a football team. Being in school for the football season really changed my relationship with school. I definitely have a greater sense of pride at UW after rooting for the Dawgs every weekend!
Another Dawg Saturday with one of the new members in Pi Phi! It was so fun to get to know all the new girls by hanging out with them and going to the games every weekend. Living in the house definitely gave me a greater sense of community and a stronger bond with all of the other Pi Phis.
Bid day! Being at bid day when all of the new members moved into the house was one of the coolest experiences I've had in college. At NYU almost none of us lived in our sorority house, so this was definitely different for me. Having the new members move in right away helped me get to know them, and besides that it was just fun!
This button will take you to the group project from educational psychology that I mentioned earlier. I chose this project as an artifact from my Autumn quarter because it was something that I really struggled with, but I love the final product. Once my group settled on a research topic we were really able to get into the assignment and do high-quality research. This assignment also helped enrich my educational experience beyond the classroom because it gave me a glimpse at what it might be like to apply for a grant later in my academic career.
This button links you to my first content review from my stress and coping class. This assignment asked me to pick my eight favorite topics from the class, explain them in depth (and possibly do some extra outside research on them), explain why they are one of the most important concepts for me, and give an example of what the concept might look like. This assignment forced me to make connections between my life and course content, and I found this task to be very valuable. By relating the content to my own life, I have better encoded the research, as well as the main take-home messages from these topics.