I chose Concordia mainly because it was a smaller campus that was a good distance from home. Originally from St. Cloud, I didn’t want to stay in the area after high school despite the many good schools that are around there. I had never been to Fargo-Moorhead before, and to be honest I’m not sure how I first found out about Concordia. During high school I was always interested in chemistry and the brain, and hearing that they had a strong chemistry department as well as a neuroscience major it soon became a top choice for me. I wanted to go into pharmaceuticals and drug development and research, so chemistry seemed like the best fit.
I came in as a freshman in 2019 as a chemistry major with a neurochemistry concentration. I loved the classes I was taking and felt it was the right fit for me. However as well all know that got totally ruined spring of 2020, and my college experience completely changed. I am very much an in person learner, and trying to take organic chemistry my sophomore year half online, while dealing with the mess and personal stress from that year, made me rethink my choices. I was not doing well in my classes, and through lots of conversations with my professors, friends, and even my therapist, I decided to drop my chemistry major and switch to a neuroscience major.
Don’t get me wrong, I love neuroscience and I’ll never regret the decision to switch. But one important thing about me is that I do not like biology. Plants and cells are the bane of my existence, and going into neuroscience as a career the main options were biology based or psychology based. And neither of those really spoke to me. Close to the end of the fall semester of what should have been my senior year, I had a conversation with some friends who had taken organic chemistry in the summer, and how much they loved it. I went home thinking about how I could love that class, and how it would open the door to be able to focus on chemistry again. Two days later I decided to do a Flex Year and stay at Concordia to complete a chemistry major.
I then went on to take physical chemistry, abnormal psychology, inorganic chemistry, and neurochemistry. And I finally felt like what I was learning and what my path was turning out to be what I wanted. Neurochemistry has been one of my favorite classes that I’ve taken, and it easily fulfills all the goals for learning that Concordia has. Most notably are these two:
- Instill a Love for Learning
- This class really solidified that I want to go into drug development, almost every signaling pathway we talked about and neural system had an application into pharmacologic treatment. I found myself excited to read the papers for this class, and to go to discussion days on Fridays to see what ideas my classmates have. I’ve recommended this class to so many people because of how enjoyable I found it.
- Encourage Responsible Participation in the World
- During our weekly papers and discussion topics we often talked about illnesses and diseases that are seriously detrimental to people. A lot of these topics made me realize that the work I do in the future could potentially impact tons of people. It made me excited about the field I want to go into.
This class will always have a special place in my heart.
