Out of all the science courses I have taken at Concordia College, Neurochemistry was the only one that truly encapsulated the meaning of BREW, or Becoming Responsibly Engaged in the World. In this class, we were meant to make a difference in the community in some fashion, pertaining to a neurodegenerative disease or disorder. I am fairly confident we all were able to accomplish this. In my case, my group and I were able to educate others on autism and some guides on how to effectively teach a child with autism in the classroom. In our group, we had several people, many of whom had varying degrees of experience with autism. Some had grown up with friends that had autism, worked with autistic children at their job, or even had a family member with autism. Together with our different specialties in school, we had a diverse perspective on the disorder and the information we would like to share. We were never going to be able to give a comprehensive “how-to” that works for every child, but I believe the tips from us and our guest expert, Cailin, could be a useful aid. Even though the message wasn’t as widespread as we would have liked, the few educators we were able to connect with highly valued the information.
Coming into this course, I knew very little about the brain, especially when it comes to all the neurological disorders we discussed (except for maybe concussions). I didn’t anticipate to, but I enjoyed reading the scientific papers; they just added so much to my knowledge base on these real world problems we come in contact with or discuss on a regular basis. Even more so, once we were able to dig to the root of these papers, much of it just made sense, and you could see connections to other courses (for me, namely biochemistry and genetics). They also were able to change some of the common misconceptions or stigmas I had on some diseases (especially when it came to addiction and schizophrenia).
There is also something to be said for the value we gained in constantly speaking in scientific terms, and then transferring it into more simpler terms when we get the chance to discuss what we’ve learned to others. It’s helpful not only for being able to inform others on the awesome research that’s being done today, but even help ourselves with understanding it more thoroughly.
I’m unbelievably grateful for having the opportunity to take this course; I think every person should learn the information we did in this class. Neurochemistry really did culminate into a top academic experience where the students could grow in our skills as communicators, researchers, and difference-makers. I anticipate the things I have learned here to translate into my future graduate research (or research goals at least!).
