The Capstone Experience
One of the major concepts that Concordia tries to instill in the students is to become responsibly engaged in the world. Concordia refers to this as BREW. Throughout my last semester here at school, I have been taking a neurochemistry course. This course has been different from any other course that I have been enrolled in while at Concordia.
I feel like this course has been a great teaching tool for BREW. The concepts and ideas that we have been able to discuss in class have been eye opening. The way we were able to learn about the details of different diseases gave us a new way to look at them.
For example, the topic of addiction was covered. Learning the mechanisms in the brain behind addiction made it much more pathological instead of a fault of that person. Putting things into scientific and medical terms makes it easy to be compassionate for anyone in this scenario. Through our discussions in class we were able to share our different outlooks on ideas like this.
We were able to have lengthy discussions about each issue, and hearing others experiences and knowledge was incredibly interesting. This was a new way of learning and sharing ideas. These discussions were a great time to communicate about some difficult topics.
As I stated earlier, this course was different from any I have taken. In most courses, you are given a syllabus and told what is due and when you need to have it done. We were able to have a lot more freedom in this course. We were able to pick out topics that intrigued us, and then teach our fellow classmates.
The professor has always been the main source of knowledge throughout my time at Concordia, but this course was different. Our professor was there to learn with us, and of course teach us if we needed it. Learning from other peers was a new and interesting way to take in the information.
Since we were responsible to teach others about a certain topic, we needed to research that topic and be able to explain it. This course not only made us use reliable research, but it made us learn how to teach it to others. Most courses will have you give a presentation, but this was a more personal teaching approach.
This approach was very useful for those of us who are going to be venturing out into the world within the next year. This course taught us to think for ourselves, and be able to apply our knowledge to different aspects of our lives. This class was much more independent than any other I’ve been in.
As seniors, we are now going to enter into the real world, and we need to be independent. This was a bit of a test run I think, and a very successful one. During our time in this course, we were also given the opportunity to bring our knowledge into the larger community.
Everyone was given the chance to participate in a community action project. We got to team up with social work students to try and make an impact on others. Different groups tackled different topics, ranging from mental health to addiction.
The topics addressed impact millions of people a year, so we were able to try and make a difference. With the skills we were taught in the classroom, we were able to go out and teach others about the things we had learned.
Educating more people is just one way to start a conversation about difficult topics. The skills we have learned in this class are transferrable, and will only help us continue to grow. This neurochemistry course is one of the best classes I have ever taken.
The Capstone Experience
