Good afternoon, readers :).
It is my time of the year. After classes end (which they did yesterday), Wellesley holds “reading period,” a time when the whole campus is silent as people study for finals. It is a time to review everything that we learned over the past semester, not worry about assignments and due dates, and just sit down and understand how far we have come. Amongst the hours of drawing on the whiteboard, scribbling madly in notebooks, and staring vacantly at textbooks, there are innumerable study breaks: scheduled periods of fun, which is how I enjoy myself the most. There was a SERP (Sophomore Early Research Program) meeting yesterday, the Chemistry Cookie Party today (so excited), and the Admissions Worker party today as well. Combined with optional (read: highly recommended) swim practices, time for sleep, and quiet and time to learn, I have to say that this is one of my favorite times of the year.
Next week, of course, my state of mind will be more accurately described as panicked wailing. But now is not next week, and I am so pleased that I have the time to reflect and realize all that I am grateful for at this moment. I am grateful for many things: that I have this space and time to write in, the continual love of my swimming friends, the amazing and wonderous fact that I live the life I do, that it was gifted to me. There are so many things that I am grateful for, but in this post I’d like to take the time to recognize a group of the most influential people in my life, who I rarely reference by name. These people are my professors.
Wellesley professors are a special breed. I can only speak for the science professors this semester (my “balanced” schedule is composed of organic chemistry, math for the sciences, neuroscience 200, and introductory psychology), but as I have often reiterated, they are a major reason that I decided to come to this school and not any other. Let me first say that all science professors do research—I had not known this initially, but in fact academic research defines the job of “professor” to a much greater extent than teaching does. At most research institutions, science professors might teach 10% of the time and devote the rest of their efforts to conducting research.
Professor Bevil Conway tells me that the split here is more like 50/50%. He explains that even with the extensive research environment, Wellesley is a teaching school. And looking back two years ago when I was applying to colleges, I wish I had realized the importance of that. A 50/50% split is what allows us unparalleled access to professors, while still having the opportunity to participate as an undergrad in competitive academic research (historically, research opportunities occurred only in graduate school). A 50/50% split is what allows us to have all of our classes taught by professors (not TAs or graduate students, as commonly occurs at large research institutions), while participating in a research environment where we aren’t just doing busy work for the graduate students. A 50/50% split is what allows us to meet with our professors privately and in small groups for hours a week, while developing our own project that could culminate in a published scientific paper by the end of our four years here.
Because most of us, especially as high schoolers, don’t know the norms of scientific research, it is hard to realize just how unusual Wellesley is in giving us the dual opportunities of professor interaction and research. But if you are a high schooler interested in science, the points I’ve outlined above have been key in my having a wonderful experience as a student and a student researcher. It is the balance of a teaching undergraduate school and professors who are similarly passionate about their research that leads to an environment where we are given our maximum breadth to explore, learn, and grow.
Much of the wealth of my research experience this year comes from Professor Conway and his lab. Professor Conway is on parental leave this semester, but that didn’t stop him from hiring me as a SERP undergraduate researcher this year. He has a lab at Wellesley, and another at Harvard Medical School, where we are currently running experiments. In his lab, he has one post-doc (post-docs are the experienced researchers who have just received their PhDs), two past undergraduates working full-time for him, and four undergraduates working for him (two seniors, two juniors, and me). He has an extraordinary attitude toward undergraduate students: he believe we are here to figure out if we like research (and if we do not, he holds no grudges about sending us on our way), and also to be full-blown members of the lab who can design experiments and execute them over several years if we so choose. This remarkably mindset is unlike any other research experience I suspect I will have—I have both the incredible opportunity to conduct real-life research in a competitive academic lab, and also no expectations to produce any results or even stay in the lab if it is not something I enjoy!
Moreover, Professor Conway hired excellent mentors. I work most directly under the supervision of Galina, who graduated last year and now works in this lab full-time (she will be applying to graduate school next year.) Galina worked in the lab all four years at Wellesley, and she not only knows… approximately everything (which is to say she knows how to seek out any kind of information that she could need, a capability that I am developing very, very slowly), but is willing to share it all. And very frustratingly, but brilliantly, she doesn’t give the answers, but only tells me how to find them :).
Professor Conway then gave me project, allowed me to work on it for a while, then assigned me a partner, Yiing. Yiing is a junior who also knows much more about Matlab (the computer program we are working with) and how the lab works than I do, and is also very willing to share her knowledge. Yiing and I, with Galina’s help, have been working on analyzing the data from five days of electrophysiology recordings for several months now. It is amazingly difficult, I have incredible support, and I have 10 hours per week to work on it. Yiing and I have just been accepted to present our research at NCRC (National Collegiate Research Conference) this January. It sounds like, and is, an opportunity made in heaven.
I thus owe much to Professor Conway and his lab :). I shall be continuing in doing research with him this winter and next semester; and welcome any questions about my experience with him or with research in general (I had similarly wonderful research experiences last spring with Professor Chris Arumainayagam and over the summer with Professor Monica Higgins, and each had their specific values). Further, I’m happy to talk about how to get a research position, as I have been doing with Erin this year on the swim team. (I believe she will now be working in the chemistry department with Professor Huang, and I’m very excited for her!) Moreover, we had our first SERP meeting yesterday (a small gathering of other students doing research), so I’m hoping to hear more about other research experiences on campus throughout next semester. And finally, if you don’t want to talk to me because you have no idea if you’re even interested in science, it is perfectly fine that you don’t know what you want to do (nobody does) and I’d still love to talk to you anyway :).
I have been focusing on the research half of the equation, but for most of us, Wellesley is defined by our academics. And on that end, I have six wonderful professors to whom I owe quite a bit. Let me begin with my math class, because you don’t want to know how many hours I spend in Professor Fernandez’s office. I have already written quite a bit about his office hours, but I’d like to thank him all the same :).
Wellesley classes are capped at 32 students. That means that when Professor Fernandez walks into the class and delivers a nerdy joke, we are expected to respond. I hear that the 8:30-9:40am has a little bit of trouble with it, and occasionally our 11:10-12:20pm class struggles with math jokes too. But the humor come persistently and consistently, and with a laid-back enthusiasm that holds our attention, if not always our grins :). He demands our attention in class, and delivers his lectures more as a back-and-forth discussion than in some of my discussion classes. He frequently attempts to “blow our minds,” and even though I often don’t have quite a good enough grasp on what he’s talking about to appreciate the mind-blowingness, his class has been my most challenging and fun math class (and I’ve been through quite a few) ever.
I also have to thank my psychology professor, Professor Wilmer. I have to say, the beginning of the year was rather boring for me, because the syllabus initially covered a non-intensive version of Neuro 100, which I had taken last spring. (Note: Neuroscience 100 is a very tough class here. It’s also totally worth it.) However, I was the only one not being challenged according to the mid-semester evaluation, and Professor Wilmer never failed to offer us additional material if we would like to learn more. He introduced videos and a fantastic textbook (it is actually enjoyable to read), the basics of psychology (quite a feat) and in-class activities. He made things relevant to our day-to-day lives, had us write essays and take tests, and throughout it all I never read anything that wasn’t enjoyable. By the end I loved the class, and am seriously concerned that I might be swayed away from the hard sciences toward the social sciences. I owe a lot to Professor Wilmer :).
Professor Huang is my lab instructor for organic chemistry. A petite Chinese woman, she is a major player in her field and is the most efficient lab instructor I’ve had. We’d walk into her class after a stuff-your-face-and-inhale lunch and crowd around her, like story time, to hear her voice over the whirr of the lab fans. She’d deliver information quickly and concisely, have us do practice problems, and then quiz us on it afterwards. Then she’d demonstrate the lab, we’d do the lab, and we’d get out with an hour or two to spare. This is an amazing feat in Wellesley class labs, and I shall forever brag about my 2-hour chemistry labs. I shall also appreciate her calm and ridiculously helpful appointments with me, her smiles and food-bringing qualities, and the fact that it took us all so long to get to know her, but we all wanted to stay with her by the end. It takes a little longer with some professors, but Professor Huang was a wonderful chemistry instructor for me.
Professor Wiest is my neuroscience 200 professor. I liked him so much that I asked him to be my major advisor, and I can now proudly say that I am a declared neuroscience major. He is earnest and fascinated by consciousness, loves to craft ideas into stories, and insists on cramming so much information into our heads every lecture it’s unbelievable. I will remember the diversity of information in his powerpoints, scribbling with different colored-pens to recreate graphs and conclusions, and his attentiveness to questions and mysteries. He likes showing short movies to demonstrate applications, and he integrated published research papers into his lectures to a degree I greatly admire. I owe a lot of information to the Professor Wiest in my head, serenely linking fascinating inquiries and research into cohesive wholes.
Ginny, as she asks us to call her, is the Neuro 100 and 200 lab instructor, and is like a mom to all of us. Ginny Quinan knows more about each of us than any other professor, is patient and kind, and always enthusiastic about our labs and what we are learning. Most class labs at Wellesley are somewhat hard to get through, as even given the most interesting material, 3 ½ hours in the afternoon after lunch tends to lend itself to a more quiescent state than doing labwork :). However, I always look forward to neuro labs, because the material we cover is always relevant and engaging, and the overall atmosphere just feels more like home. When I’m in other class labs, I actively work to get to know the other students. In Ginny’s labs, she encourages us to get to know each other, and share the experience of working together.
Professor Hearn is my chemistry professor, and he reminds us a lot of Mr. Rodgers. Unerringly understanding, kind, and calm, he possesses an incredibly soothing voice and still works on a projector. (Interestingly, all of my Wellesley professors vary in the technology they use. Powerpoints, SmartBoards, white boards, chalk boards… though I have to say that I had not seen a vis-à-vis since elementary school until Professor Hearn’s class. :)) He begins each of our classes with an article from a scientific journal, showing organic chemistry’s relevance in our day-to-day world. I love that he does this, and I wish more professors would do the same. With a passion for benzene rings and a smile throughout lecture, Professor Hearn has done wonders for my organic chemistry education.
I have run a bit long now, so I’ll be done, but I can’t thank everyone enough for the experiences I’m living. Each class, each professor, teaches me something new—about material, the world, or myself— all of it incredible. Thank you to everyone who I don’t have time to thank, and thanks so much to my professors, who make the learning possible. I’d like to extend the best to the newest members of the Class of 2017, admitted yesterday with Early Admission, and good luck to everyone else who is still in the process of deciding :).
Best to you all,
Monica
Merry Christmas from Wellesley Swim and Dive!