There are many different courses that are we are required to as students at Concordia College. There are exploration courses, perspective courses, and religions courses. Another class that is required before a student leaves Concordia is a capstone course. According to Concordia College, the capstone course is the final course in the Core Curriculum which is a writing intensive course. This course invites student to apply their liberal learning to significant problems of a global nature. This definition seems to fit the definition of Neurochemistry perfectly. One reason for this is that we were asked to write blogs after every paper that we had discussed. This definition also seems to fit the class because of the topics that we covered can deal with global problems. This is because of the neurological diseases that we covered are diseases that are issues all throughout the world and are constantly being researched everywhere.
The way that the class was set up was also very interesting. This because the course was writing intensive, but when I was doing it did not seem like it. This is because of the topics that we covered were interesting so writing about them was easy to do. There were some though that were a hard to write about, buy that is expected with so many topics. Another interesting aspect of the class was the way that it was set up. The class met every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. On Mondays, we discussed the article a little and talked about subjects that were confusing and topics that we would like to know more about. On Mondays, we also evaluated how comfortable we felt about the article. At this point in the week many of the students don’t feel very comfortable. To help increase this number, every Wednesday we take the topics we didn’t know much about and presented them to each other. This part of the class was really beneficial because it is what taught me the most about the papers. I also thought this helped my understanding of the papers so much more. Then to finish the week we discussed the papers in two groups. This is where we would discuss ideas on how to treat the disease or many other random topics. By this time, I felt fairly comfortable about the paper and felt that I knew most of the ideas associated with the paper. To cap off this class we got into groups and made a PSA about one of the neurological diseases. I felt this was one of the most enjoyable experiences of the class. I hope that these may be used in the future to show the dangers of these neurological diseases.
Another interesting experience that was associated with this class that was new to me was the blogging. I have never thought about doing this before, especially on a subject matter like this. I feel that this class has changed my idea about blogs. I feel that if you look at the right blog it can be beneficial, such as the ones on this blog. The problem is that as a reader you have to be able to distinguish between the good and the bad blogs. I also feel that it was a good experience and it helped me be able to summarize important information in a brief, but thorough manner. Another part about the blogs that I liked was the idea that I could discuss the information that I thought was meaningful to me. This is one of the first times that in my science classes that I have been able to do that. Another interesting part of the blogs to me is that all of us were in the same class, but the ideas that motivated the blogs were all different. It allows for the readers of them to learn many different ideas related to the topics.
Overall, I felt that this has been one of my favorite classes that I have taken throughout my time at Concordia. This is because I learned a lot of new information when not knowing that I was. I also that it a valuable experience to have a class that was taught to each other rather than being lectured to by a professor. Another valuable experience from was the fact that I learned so much about nutrition in the brain. There was much information about this subject that I didn’t even know. I feel that there should also be a class taught about nutrition in the brain. We learned a lot about what nutrients are important for the brain, but I feel that it would be beneficial to have a class where we learn about what we should eat for that. The problem with that is, I would learn how bad my college diet is then for my brain. A class like this could also have a positive effect on students and their grades that they have in their classes.