I'm sitting at my kitchen table right now trying to avoid the mild panic attack that goes with the realization that I'm one day shy of being a month out from the last day of classes of my undergraduate career. There are lots of deep breaths involved, and a near constant thread of thoughts along the lines of "There's so much left to do, it'll feel like forever- BUT IT'S ONLY A MONTH- calm yourself, Alycia-but it's only A MONTH" ad nauseam (almost literally). And in the middle of writing a blogpost for one of my classes, a tiny part of my brain yelled at me that I have a personal blog that I haven't updated in, oh, about five months. Oops? But not really. The problem with my brain is that it's highly predicable. For instance, the mild panic attack I was describing earlier? A) It's still going on. But B) A slightly different version occurred every Monday night when I realized (again) that I hadn't updated my blog for another week. And said panic kept getting bigger and bigger until I pushed it to the back of my brain and decided to give myself a week to concentrate on work before thinking about my blog. Repeat ad nauseam (or technically, I guess, for five months).
I'm not here to tell you that I've realized the error of my ways and am going to make up for it by blogging more frequently from now on. But I will make the slightly less terrifying promise that if I have time on all of the weekends from now until graduation, I will write something down, if only so that when all of this is said and done I will have something to look back on and remember all of the things that I did as an undergrad at MIT. Because that description is beginning to be something that describes me less and less (which is definitely mildly panic inducing, so I'm going to pretend I didn't just write that).
Focusing on a couple of past things, as well as the present then, in an attempt to not freak out before I need to go back to doing work. Since I haven't written in five months, there are approximately 5,000,000 things I'm going to forget to write about, I'm sure. As a result, I think the recap blog post will actually happen the next time I have a minute to write, and this one is going to be the "What classes is Alycia taking?" blog post. Less interesting, I know. But it's also more manageable, and kind of routine, which is good right now. So. Here goes the first blog post in five months. I apologize in advance (and also in the middle) for the horrible writing- my brain is actively preventing me from actually planning my sentences in advance, so you're getting a more stream-of-conciousness post this time. Hopefully the next time I write I'll be calm enough to give you a more well-thought-out set of words.
Anywho, below are the classes I'm taking this semester. Four of the five actual classes are required for graduation, one I'm taking for 'fun' (more on that in a bit). And I'm in lab. Of course. Anyone reading this surprised by that? No? Good, I've done my job of making sure that you know who I am. Without further ado then, let's get to what I'm learning in my last semester as an undergrad (AHHHHHHHHHH. Okay. Calm. I've got this.).
7.27- Principles of Human Disease
Also known as the class that has the potential to be really interesting, and actually quite a bit of fun. Except that my professors wouldn't know a well-designed slideshow if it jumped out and bit them, and have a not-insignificant amount of trouble giving an organized lecture because they know pretty much everything about the topics they're lecturing on, and want to tell us everything too. Which leads to a lot of tangents (something I'm sure everyone reading this blog knows absolutely nothing about, since your dear author is definitely not prone to tangents (sarcasm, in case the italics weren't obvious enough)). The purpose of the class is to give us an insight into the molecular and genetic causes of disease, and it's actually very interesting. The final project is really cool too- we get to pick a disease and design either an experiment or a clinical trial related to the treatment of the disease. Really cool is, in this case, more or less directly correlated with a bit of freaking out, since I have an exam in this class today (since it's now technically Monday). And I have yet to really start on my project. But, you know, it's going to happen one way or another. So there's that.
7.33- Evolutionary Biology
This class started out really well- on the first day I got to hold a 3.6 billion (yes, billion) year-old rock and saw a first edition copy of On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. Total nerd heaven. And then the class pretty much turned into a math class, and reminded me why I've been bad at classes that involve math for the past four years- I'm decent at understanding the concepts involved, but when I go to actually apply the math I get lost in the numbers and letters. Hence the reason I'm a biology major now, and not a biological engineer. Luckily, we've moved away from the math now, and back into concepts and modeling that only includes easy math. Hopefully, this means that I'll get back on top of the stuff we're covering, and be able to finish the class strong.
3.985- Archeological Sciences
If ever there was a class that was completely outside my comfort zone, it would probably be this one. It's all about history, which is decidedly not my favorite topic. There are many, many pages of reading each week, and to top it all off, it's taught from 7-10 pm on Monday nights, which is prime time for me to fall asleep (meaning that coffee is almost always consumed before I head to class). The class as a whole covers some really interesting topics though, and is fairly low key. Plus, it fulfills one of my remaining two humanities credits, so there's that. On the whole, while it's not my favorite class in the world, it's also not the worst one I've ever taken. And I'm getting exposed to a new branch of information that I previously had no knowledge about, which is definitely a valuable experience.
WGS.115- Gender and Technology
This class is outside my comfort zone in a completely different sense. First, there are about 10 people in the class, meaning that we each are pretty much required to participate multiple times in each class. Second, as a WGS class (where WGS stands for Women's and Gender Studies), we're covering topics that are intensely personal for many people, and are often controversial on some level. I'm a fairly private person, and I avoid talking about uncomfortable topics like I'm going to win an Olympic medal if I can keep away from them long enough. But since participation is a large portion of my grade in this class, I'm more or less required to discuss topics I would otherwise avoid. I stammer my way through it, and if anyone who knew me well was in the class, they could very easily tell how uncomfortable I am by my body language. But overall, I think it's good for me to consider a lot of these topics. And, again, it's a very interesting class. It would just be easier if I could avoid actively participating. :P
18.05- Introduction to Probability and Statistics
This is my 'fun' class (where 'fun' equals 'I should probably learn this at some point in my career'). It's been a good reintroduction to taking math classes, and not an entirely horrible experience. Again, not my favorite class. But also not my least favorite, which is something of a miracle given my history with mathematics. There's not a whole lot to say about this one- the title pretty much describes everything we're learning. It's the one class where I consistently have work, and I don't have a final project (just a final exam), which is kind of nice if only because it lends some constancy to my weeks.
UROP
As per usual, I'm spending a large amount of time in lab. The difference this semester is that I'm trying to finish up my projects before leaving. The finishing up thing has gone pretty well so far- I'm getting into the range of being finished with several parts of my project. But at the same time I'm starting a couple of new things, and my grad student convinced me that I should present a poster at a poster session (in exactly a month, actually... oh goodness), so it's not like lab work is slowing down any. I'll talk more about what I'm actually doing in another post, but suffice it to say that the amount of time I'm spending in lab has not actually diminished as much as you'd think it would when I go from 30 credit hours in lab (last semester) to 12 (this semester).
That's pretty much it for the overview of what I'm spending time doing this semester- there are a bunch of random things that I should catch you up on at some point, but I'm not going to do that now because I need to study for an exam (see the 7.27 entry) and plan an experiment for lab. So I'm going to go do that now so that sleep can also happen at some point tonight. :P
I hope everyone has been doing well for the past 5 months! Apologies for being away for so long- hopefully it won't happen again. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment