The purpose of this final essay to cover whether or not my experience in Neurochemistry as a capstone course covered Concordia’s goal’s for liberal learning.
Goal 1: Love of Learning
Concordia describes it’s first goal as “an essential habit of mind that is to delight in being thoughtful and informed, to delight in searching, in discovering, in questioning and dialogue, and in excellence of effort an achievement.” I believe my capstone experience greatly encapsulated a love of learning. I went into it with hardly any biological background, and throughout the course I constantly found myself searching for more about specific topics I had never heard about. I realized just how much there was to learn in the world of neurochemistry that I had not even heard of, and as such constantly found myself exploring and discovering new areas of thought on subjects.
Goal 2: Foundational skills and transferable intellectual capacities
Concordia describes this goal as a set of abilities that allows a person to do something, enabling a person to know when to do something, how to adapt it, and when to do it in a new way. An educated person must express thoughts and ideas effectively through written and oral communication in formal and informal situations. This again, I believe was fulfilled by my capstone experience. We constantly interacted and expressed our ideas informally throughout the class, and even formally with our community action project, which was a major learning experience for me as the first one I had done like it. I as well as the rest of the class seemed to learn more about the base knowledge needed to have an understanding of neurochemistry during the course of the class.
Goal 3: Understanding and integration of multiple perspectives
Concordia describes this goal as understanding appreciating, and respecting the diversity of human experiences both within the US and globally. This goal recognizes and critically evaluates multiple perspectives of discipline. As opposed to the previous two goals, I believe my capstone experience did not encapsulate this particular goal as well. Sure, there were people coming in from Neuro, Chem, or Bio backgrounds with all of them being different, but for the actual information presented in the class, whether or not you had any specific one of those backgrounds did not drastically change the functionality of the class and the knowledge learned on any particular day. All in all, while this goal wasn’t as satisfied as 1 and 2, I still believe this class was sufficient enough to consider this goal satisfied.
Goal 4: Examined cultural, ethical, and spiritual self-understanding.
Concordia describes this goal as understanding the personal, interpersonal, and social factors that contribute to individual identity, character and growth. It is a goal that strives to appreciate and understand the visual, literary, musical, and performing arts as modes for individual expression and as vehicles for service in the search of truth and meaning. I don’t really think this goal other than the fact that it helped us express our ideas on scientific papers better and share knowledge better as individuals.
Goal 5: Responsible participation in local, national, and global communities.
Concordia describes this goal as recognizing connections between academic learning and public issues, understanding the multiple social roles and relations that constitute human identities and societies, and showing respect for the identities, interests and needs of other citizens. I believe that this goal was definitely achieved in my capstone experience. Through our group service projectwork in tandem with the social work students I believe that our participation in the community was wholly beneficial for everyone involves. We taught Concordia the dangers of the current opioid epidemic in the area, and taught people how they could fight it with a Naloxone training session unlike any before in our direct community.
Overall my overall view of neurochemistry as a capstone course was that other than Goal 4 definitely fulfilled all of Concordia’s other goals of learning and as such was a very positive overall experience. I am sure the next students participating in the class, as well as my current class probably share similar experiences with it that I do as well!
Did I Experience Concordia’s Goals for Liberal Learning in My Capstone Experience?
