![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
indecisionwinsSo I’ve been meaning to write a sort of “end of year” post for a while, but I haven’t actually managed to do it before now. (I wanted to do it January 1st, partly because Edward Parrish tended to write long entries at the end of the year to wrap things up in a journal that he otherwise didn't write in all that frequently. And, I'm sure he wasn't the first to do that, either.) 2004 has been a really good year for me, and unfortunately, I really don’t think 2005 will be as good. But I guess we'll have to see...
I also wanted post because Susan and I sort of decided that with her going to Germany and with me graduating, we sort of should move back to being “friends with subtext,” at least for now. But if we are in the same place next year (like if I end up getting a job at Penn), then hopefully we will be able to move back to “text” at some point in the future. I think it is the right thing to do, since we’re probably not really serious enough to have a long-distance relationship going for that long. But if you wonder why, for example, the relationship is taken off Facebook entirely...well, it’s because they don’t give a “friends with subtext” option.
Of course, that’s one major reason why I’m worried about this coming year. When I read back to the beginning of my LJ a couple weeks ago, I really realized how much better I’m doing now socially compared to last year at this time. Part of what helped me was finally getting some good speech therapy (which I did in January), and the externship that I did last January definitely helped me feel better about myself. But I also first met![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gerbilicious85 in February, and I have to think she's the major reason why this past year has been the happiest part of my time at Swarthmore. (Well, along sophomore year, rooming with Jonathan, which also had some nice times. OK, I shouldn't downgrade that, because I've thought about it, and there is absolutely nothing in the entire world that I would trade that year for, just because rooming with Jonathan was so psychologically beneficial for me in so many ways. But I'm not going to go into any more detail on that here…) So now…well, we'll see how next semester goes. I will be taking classes that will hopefully be interesting next semester, and hopefully I'll be in touch with Susan in Germany. But it's still not the same... Of course, it is possible that I'll be busy enough with my work next semester that that will keep me busy. (And actually, I guess that may be a good thing, since this past semester, I was definitely, mm, preoccupied at times with wanting to go to ML even when I was doing work. It turned out OK, and my grades were fine, but since these classes are more important, and assuming I am taking the class at Penn, it will also be more intense, I'll probably want to focus on them more than I did my classes last semester… So I guess there is one good thing with this. I realized that after I thought about how I've been telling people that "the semester was good, even though my classes weren't all that exciting"…but the thing is, even though they weren't perfect, and animal behavior was an annoying time sink, it wasn't that my classes were all that boring—I mean, they were better than the pre-med classes, my History 91 paper was interesting, Barry Schwartz's class is something that I think about a lot when I'm in the real world, even though it doesn't seem very relevant while I'm on-campus, and Concepts of the Person was fun. But I just had something more exciting going on...)
And the other thing that's improved so much since last year is my academic direction. Figuring out that I liked psychology was really a huge thing, so at least I have a pretty good idea of what I want to do. I still need to decide between the MD/Ph.D. and the Ph.D., but I'm at least pretty sure that social neuroscience is something that will really fascinate me.
Oh also, one thing on that note, which was probably the highlight of my trip to Chicago... (In case you don't know, I've been in Chicago visiting Susan for the past few days, and I'm leaving tomorrow. It's been pretty nice, even though I know my mother will insist that we were crazy for never leaving the house before 2-3 PM. But ah well.) I went yesterday to visit University of Chicago with Susan and her dad, since even though I don't know exactly what direction I want to go in, I thought I should visit while I'm here. It's probably still my top choice (or at least one of my top choices), although I have found a few other schools that look good as well. So we didn't actually get there until about 4 PM, but I was hoping we would still make it in time to find this Institute for Mind and Biology, which is the center that seems to focus on the kind of stuff I'm interested in. Well, we couldn't find it, and nobody seemed to know where it was, so then someone directed us towards the admissions office so we could ask them. Well, I look at the directory in the building we went into (actually, a series of buildings), and I see a listing for the psychology department office. So I decide that that would probably be a good place to go, since I could ask them for graduate school information, and since they would also have to be able to tell me where the IMB is. So I went in and talked to one of the administrative people from the psych department for a few minutes, and I got a brochure from her about the psych department. And then I asked the administrative person if she thought it would make sense for me to try to talk to John Cacioppo, who's probably the leading researcher in social neuroscience, and there's a pretty good chance that I would have him as an advisor if I end up going there. I wasn't planning on actually talking to professors, and especially not him, since for one, he's really busy, and also, from what I had seen, it didn't seem like he would be the nicest guy. Well, the administrative person said that I might as well go up to his office, and sure enough, his door was open. (Actually, his door was the only one on the hall that was open, since, after all, this was at 4:45 on a Friday afternoon.) So after nervously pacing in the hall a little bit, I went in to talk to him. (Of course, I had hardly eaten anything all day, since we were planning on going for lunch first and had to scrap that when we realized how late it was... So, that probably made me even more enthusiastic and excited, and maybe also made me less evaluative of him, so I still don't want to say that I would absolutely want to work with him. But still, the fact that he was willing to sit down for 15 minutes or so to talk to a prospective student who dropped by unannounced on a Friday afternoon was really nice. And, in general, it's clear that he is really devoted to his work and knows a lot about the subject, and he was pretty friendly. Oh and, he also reawakened Susan's passion for psychology, which was really cool to see.) So it turned out that that was much better than finding the building I was looking for, because once we did finally find it (when everyone was already gone), it turned out that I may not have been able to see anyone there anyway. And besides, Cacioppo is the one who I would have wanted to talk to anyway, and I didn't realize that his office was now with the psych department. So that was very good luck...
He actually did give me what I think is some very good advice, too. I talked to him for a few minutes, and one thing that I asked was about the MD/Ph.D. vs. Ph.D question, which is the big thing I'm trying to figure out right now. First, I mentioned why I'm interested in the MD/Ph.D., which is that I like the idea of not JUST being in the academic setting at all times; I think I would do better by having a mix of academic stuff and seeing how it's actually applied on real people. And, he said that that's a very valid reason to get an MD/Ph.D. At the same time, he said that by just having a Ph.D., you have more time for research; he said that MD/Ph.D.'s are usually fighting to find time for research along with their clinical responsibilities, where he can devote all of his time to research and teaching. Also, even more importantly, he said that MD/Ph.D.'s are going to be focusing more on applying knowledge that's already out there to treating diseases. On the other hand, Ph.D. researchers would be the ones to really figure out new knowledge, and look at "bigger picture" questions. And when I said that the Schachter/Singer study and the shaky bridge study were the things that I thought were so fascinating, and were the things that really got me interested in this area, he said that Ph.D.'s are usually the ones answering those kinds of questions. And, he said that he does work on human subjects, ranging from undergraduate Psych 1 students to people with various medical conditions. So from that, it sounds like maybe I should go for the Ph.D., although I'm still nowhere near ready to make a final decision on that yet.
One barrier to actually doing that is that I would have to take the psych GRE, and I really don't know that I've taken a broad enough mixture of psychology to do as well on that as I did on the MCAT. But I guess if I study for it, I could do OK, and maybe with the courses I'm taking this semester, I would be OK anyway. But I guess I'll have to see. I would also feel silly about wasting all of the time I've put into pre-med stuff, and there really are still good reasons why I may want to do an MD/Ph.D anyway. But if it's really not what I want to do, I know that there's no point in going for it, so I just have to figure out whether it is what I want to do...
So, I guess it may be a nice idea to actually sleep a little bit tonight, so I guess this will be all for now. Now, I go to Boston for an externship, which hopefully will be interesting, although I'm trying to convince myself not to expect to be as excited as I was about the one last year, partly because before I did that externship last year, I was really in bad shape, since the only recent research experiences I had had were that not-fun internship in Minnesota and the Developmental Genetics seminar, which also wasn't all that great. Now, I'm feeling more secure, even though I think I will still learn a lot from this. But, we'll see how it goes.
Oh also, one other thing. It looks like there actually is someone really great who I would really want to work with at Penn next year, someone named Martha Farah. Becky Compton, the prof. at Haverford who I talked to a few weeks ago, gave me her name, and this was also the first person John Cacioppo suggested when I asked him about people at Penn. And, from looking at her home page, it looks like she does do some really interesting stuff. From what
Prof. Compton told me, this woman is brilliant, but also sort of flaky, and isn't always very good at responding to E-mails. (So, she sounds kind of like Scott Gilbert, but in my field, which would be very cool...) So it may be a little hard to get something set up, but if I do end up being able to work with her, I think next year will actually be pretty exciting. Does anyone know anything about her? At this point, I think I could say that that would beat the NIH as my top choice for work next year...
I also wanted post because Susan and I sort of decided that with her going to Germany and with me graduating, we sort of should move back to being “friends with subtext,” at least for now. But if we are in the same place next year (like if I end up getting a job at Penn), then hopefully we will be able to move back to “text” at some point in the future. I think it is the right thing to do, since we’re probably not really serious enough to have a long-distance relationship going for that long. But if you wonder why, for example, the relationship is taken off Facebook entirely...well, it’s because they don’t give a “friends with subtext” option.
Of course, that’s one major reason why I’m worried about this coming year. When I read back to the beginning of my LJ a couple weeks ago, I really realized how much better I’m doing now socially compared to last year at this time. Part of what helped me was finally getting some good speech therapy (which I did in January), and the externship that I did last January definitely helped me feel better about myself. But I also first met
gerbilicious85 in February, and I have to think she's the major reason why this past year has been the happiest part of my time at Swarthmore. (Well, along sophomore year, rooming with Jonathan, which also had some nice times. OK, I shouldn't downgrade that, because I've thought about it, and there is absolutely nothing in the entire world that I would trade that year for, just because rooming with Jonathan was so psychologically beneficial for me in so many ways. But I'm not going to go into any more detail on that here…) So now…well, we'll see how next semester goes. I will be taking classes that will hopefully be interesting next semester, and hopefully I'll be in touch with Susan in Germany. But it's still not the same... Of course, it is possible that I'll be busy enough with my work next semester that that will keep me busy. (And actually, I guess that may be a good thing, since this past semester, I was definitely, mm, preoccupied at times with wanting to go to ML even when I was doing work. It turned out OK, and my grades were fine, but since these classes are more important, and assuming I am taking the class at Penn, it will also be more intense, I'll probably want to focus on them more than I did my classes last semester… So I guess there is one good thing with this. I realized that after I thought about how I've been telling people that "the semester was good, even though my classes weren't all that exciting"…but the thing is, even though they weren't perfect, and animal behavior was an annoying time sink, it wasn't that my classes were all that boring—I mean, they were better than the pre-med classes, my History 91 paper was interesting, Barry Schwartz's class is something that I think about a lot when I'm in the real world, even though it doesn't seem very relevant while I'm on-campus, and Concepts of the Person was fun. But I just had something more exciting going on...) And the other thing that's improved so much since last year is my academic direction. Figuring out that I liked psychology was really a huge thing, so at least I have a pretty good idea of what I want to do. I still need to decide between the MD/Ph.D. and the Ph.D., but I'm at least pretty sure that social neuroscience is something that will really fascinate me.
Oh also, one thing on that note, which was probably the highlight of my trip to Chicago... (In case you don't know, I've been in Chicago visiting Susan for the past few days, and I'm leaving tomorrow. It's been pretty nice, even though I know my mother will insist that we were crazy for never leaving the house before 2-3 PM. But ah well.) I went yesterday to visit University of Chicago with Susan and her dad, since even though I don't know exactly what direction I want to go in, I thought I should visit while I'm here. It's probably still my top choice (or at least one of my top choices), although I have found a few other schools that look good as well. So we didn't actually get there until about 4 PM, but I was hoping we would still make it in time to find this Institute for Mind and Biology, which is the center that seems to focus on the kind of stuff I'm interested in. Well, we couldn't find it, and nobody seemed to know where it was, so then someone directed us towards the admissions office so we could ask them. Well, I look at the directory in the building we went into (actually, a series of buildings), and I see a listing for the psychology department office. So I decide that that would probably be a good place to go, since I could ask them for graduate school information, and since they would also have to be able to tell me where the IMB is. So I went in and talked to one of the administrative people from the psych department for a few minutes, and I got a brochure from her about the psych department. And then I asked the administrative person if she thought it would make sense for me to try to talk to John Cacioppo, who's probably the leading researcher in social neuroscience, and there's a pretty good chance that I would have him as an advisor if I end up going there. I wasn't planning on actually talking to professors, and especially not him, since for one, he's really busy, and also, from what I had seen, it didn't seem like he would be the nicest guy. Well, the administrative person said that I might as well go up to his office, and sure enough, his door was open. (Actually, his door was the only one on the hall that was open, since, after all, this was at 4:45 on a Friday afternoon.) So after nervously pacing in the hall a little bit, I went in to talk to him. (Of course, I had hardly eaten anything all day, since we were planning on going for lunch first and had to scrap that when we realized how late it was... So, that probably made me even more enthusiastic and excited, and maybe also made me less evaluative of him, so I still don't want to say that I would absolutely want to work with him. But still, the fact that he was willing to sit down for 15 minutes or so to talk to a prospective student who dropped by unannounced on a Friday afternoon was really nice. And, in general, it's clear that he is really devoted to his work and knows a lot about the subject, and he was pretty friendly. Oh and, he also reawakened Susan's passion for psychology, which was really cool to see.) So it turned out that that was much better than finding the building I was looking for, because once we did finally find it (when everyone was already gone), it turned out that I may not have been able to see anyone there anyway. And besides, Cacioppo is the one who I would have wanted to talk to anyway, and I didn't realize that his office was now with the psych department. So that was very good luck...
He actually did give me what I think is some very good advice, too. I talked to him for a few minutes, and one thing that I asked was about the MD/Ph.D. vs. Ph.D question, which is the big thing I'm trying to figure out right now. First, I mentioned why I'm interested in the MD/Ph.D., which is that I like the idea of not JUST being in the academic setting at all times; I think I would do better by having a mix of academic stuff and seeing how it's actually applied on real people. And, he said that that's a very valid reason to get an MD/Ph.D. At the same time, he said that by just having a Ph.D., you have more time for research; he said that MD/Ph.D.'s are usually fighting to find time for research along with their clinical responsibilities, where he can devote all of his time to research and teaching. Also, even more importantly, he said that MD/Ph.D.'s are going to be focusing more on applying knowledge that's already out there to treating diseases. On the other hand, Ph.D. researchers would be the ones to really figure out new knowledge, and look at "bigger picture" questions. And when I said that the Schachter/Singer study and the shaky bridge study were the things that I thought were so fascinating, and were the things that really got me interested in this area, he said that Ph.D.'s are usually the ones answering those kinds of questions. And, he said that he does work on human subjects, ranging from undergraduate Psych 1 students to people with various medical conditions. So from that, it sounds like maybe I should go for the Ph.D., although I'm still nowhere near ready to make a final decision on that yet.
One barrier to actually doing that is that I would have to take the psych GRE, and I really don't know that I've taken a broad enough mixture of psychology to do as well on that as I did on the MCAT. But I guess if I study for it, I could do OK, and maybe with the courses I'm taking this semester, I would be OK anyway. But I guess I'll have to see. I would also feel silly about wasting all of the time I've put into pre-med stuff, and there really are still good reasons why I may want to do an MD/Ph.D anyway. But if it's really not what I want to do, I know that there's no point in going for it, so I just have to figure out whether it is what I want to do...
So, I guess it may be a nice idea to actually sleep a little bit tonight, so I guess this will be all for now. Now, I go to Boston for an externship, which hopefully will be interesting, although I'm trying to convince myself not to expect to be as excited as I was about the one last year, partly because before I did that externship last year, I was really in bad shape, since the only recent research experiences I had had were that not-fun internship in Minnesota and the Developmental Genetics seminar, which also wasn't all that great. Now, I'm feeling more secure, even though I think I will still learn a lot from this. But, we'll see how it goes.
Oh also, one other thing. It looks like there actually is someone really great who I would really want to work with at Penn next year, someone named Martha Farah. Becky Compton, the prof. at Haverford who I talked to a few weeks ago, gave me her name, and this was also the first person John Cacioppo suggested when I asked him about people at Penn. And, from looking at her home page, it looks like she does do some really interesting stuff. From what
Prof. Compton told me, this woman is brilliant, but also sort of flaky, and isn't always very good at responding to E-mails. (So, she sounds kind of like Scott Gilbert, but in my field, which would be very cool...) So it may be a little hard to get something set up, but if I do end up being able to work with her, I think next year will actually be pretty exciting. Does anyone know anything about her? At this point, I think I could say that that would beat the NIH as my top choice for work next year...
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-01-12 02:11 am (UTC)Oh yeah, and nice meeting you. *halo*
(You're really nice -- I approve for Susan. :p)
Good luck with your endeavors! :)
no subject
Date: 2005-01-13 08:04 am (UTC)Lots of love, Jonathan