If any one of you decides to attend Concordia be prepared to hear a lot about BREWing. However, unfortunately this BREWing is not of the alcoholic variety (generally). So if you were getting excited there for a second I apologize. So for the few that are still reading this article and want to know more about Concordia’s academic goals, BREW is an acronym for Becoming Responsibly Engaged in the World. And I can understand if this definition sounds like nothing more than pretentious academia gobbely-goop that people use as ammo against liberal arts colleges. However, the concept of BREW has intentionally bled into every one of my classes at Concordia from the driest of math lessons (no offense math) to the lofty existential discussions in religion that have made me question my entire purpose.
The concept of BREW was at its most importance in my Neurochemistry capstone course as the function of a capstone course is to take all that you’ve learned with you liberal arts education and put it together to create something meaningful (a.k.a. BREWing). And I will say with utmost sincerity I truly felt that happened in Neurochemistry. We covered a variety of difficult topics like obesity, Alzheimer’s, ALS, mental illness, and addiction in a very nuanced way. Of course the primary aspect of these diseases that we covered were related to neuroscience. However, the most important thing that was stressed in this course was that science doesn’t exist in a vacuum. In real life scientists don’t just sit in dark rooms spouting off random scientific jargon at each other and either agreeing or disagreeing with each others’ findings.
What makes science important and special is when findings can be conveyed accurately to the public as well as being able to make a real world impact. Furthermore, science is directly affected by larger forces such as society, culture, economics, business, and politics. And these topics were brought up many times. Questions like how can we relate to people that vaccines don’t cause autism or is there even a scientific way to treat the obesity epidemic were brought up. I know that as a freshmen going into college I wouldn’t have been able to even think up these sort of question let alone look at them in a multifaceted way. How we can impact and respond to a world where it seems like everything is becoming more and more complicated is important. What’s even more important is being engaged in this crazy world in a responsible and informed manner – especially since there seems to be an even bigger blurring of information despite so much of it being readily available. And now on the cusp of graduation, I feel like I’ve reached a point where I can.
Capping the Stone – The Culmination of My Concordia Experience
