Instill a love for learning
When I was accepted to Concordia College, I knew I would be attending a liberal arts college, but I honestly had no idea what this really meant and the benefits that this has on students. All I knew when coming to college was that I love biology and that I thought the brain was an extremely interesting organ, so I decided to pursue majors in biology and neuroscience. Concordia College offers their students an extremely diverse set of classes. The core curriculum itself requires classes that I never would have taken, but have thoroughly enjoyed. The unique course set has allowed me to expand my knowledge not only in the various sciences, but also in areas like religion, foreign language, art, and others. This aspect of Concordia’s liberal arts education allows for students of all backgrounds to come together and take classes with each other when we normally would most likely never have had any classes together. This makes for great discussions and additional view points to every core course. This allows for a person to expand their knowledge and to continuously learn about new things. These aspects of a liberal arts college make a person want to continue learning and love doing so, and a great example of a class that has this impact on its participants is Neurochemistry.
Develop foundational skills and transferrable intellectual capacity
A class which is named “Neurochemistry” may come off as intimidating, even for a senior neurochemistry major. Entering this semester, I definitely felt as though I was going to have a hard time with this class and keeping up with and understanding the material, but this course was so different than any other science course I have taken thus far at Concordia College. The people who take this course have backgrounds in all different types of majors. Rather than being a fully lecture based course, this class was a discussion based course. This meant that each week we would come prepared having read a research article or review expanding some realm of neurochemistry and spent the rest of the week discussing the topic more in depth. My future career goals involve working with and researching neurogenerative diseases and disorders, so this class felt extremely applicable to my future. I feel as though I have bettered my ability to read and annotate research articles as well as have gained a clearer understanding of molecular pathways that occur in the brain. Both of which will be extremely beneficial aspects in my future.
Develop an understanding of disciplinary, interdisciplinary, and intercultural perspectives and their connections
As mentioned above, the Neurochemistry class involves students from various backgrounds. Since part of our week was spent discussing topics that interest us but are involved with the topic of that week, we were able to hear a multitude of perspectives from various disciplines. This involved implying different perspectives outside of the science explained in the paper such as economic, societal, or political aspects revolving around each topic. We have also had the opportunity to collaborate with students in the social work program during this course. We came together and discovered the similarities and differences that go into each of our disciplines while working with our peers and our community. Being able to sit down with students who are of different educational or cultural backgrounds than one’s self improves the knowledge gained from the class as a whole. This is reflective in classes other than Neurochemistry at Concordia as well.
Cultivate an examined cultural, ethical, physical, and spiritual self-understanding
The freedom this course gave in choosing what aspects of each topic to dive deeper into had additional, extremely beneficial impacts. Students are able to understand more about themselves as they are able to reflect on what interests them the most as it has been seen to be continuous throughout the course. Some students will take a political, cultural, or even spiritual approach to these discussions. This has not only affected the student doing the research, but also the students who are listening to them. There are so many unique aspects that go into neurochemistry that allow for students to develop a stronger understanding of each topic. It has been extremely interesting to reflect at the end of this course to fully understand what all we have gained from it outside of the science side of this course.
Encouraging responsible participation in the world
Concordia College has taught me an insane amount of things about myself and about the real world. I never would have thought that students studying neuroscience would collaborate with students who are in the social work program or that a student studying art would have so much in common with a student studying political science, but Concordia has shown me that this is what will happen in the real world. Although my plans for the future involve working in lab, I now realize that engaging with people in other career fields should be anticipated since we will be able to feed off of each other and learn from each other. Neurochemistry specifically has shown me just how real this will be since we have worked with the community and people of different backgrounds throughout the semester. I feel more prepared than ever to enter graduate school and eventually the work force.
