I did not know what to expect when I signed up for this course. I honestly thought it would parallel the neurobiology course some of my classmates had taken last spring. This thought had me worried, as I was very aware of how difficult that class had been. However, I have been pleasantly surprised by neurochemistry. The reason I enjoyed neurochemistry so much is not because of the lighter workload than traditional classrooms or the decreased emphasis on exams (although those were nice benefits), but because it encouraged open discussion and the ability to draw knowledge from many different areas to understand a concept.
The structure of the class created an environment where I wanted to dig deeper and find the answer to the various neurological diseases we read about. We were given a whole week to read a paper, discuss our questions, learn more about topics within the paper, and finally, discuss our thoughts and conclusions with our classmates. This gave us the opportunity to draw connections to what we wanted to learn about. It also altered the learning environment, instead of being taught at by our professor every day, we were given the freedom to read over the material, bring forth our questions, and then find the answer for ourselves and bring it to class. Approaching material in a way that emphasized the process of learning instead of just memorizing the material to get an “A” helped instill the love of learning that is vital to a liberal arts education.
This love of learning was such an important part of this course. If I’m being honest, these four years of undergrad have been tough. As a chemistry and biology double major, I have spent endless hours going over material, reading, studying, doing homework… it has been a lot of work. And extremely stressful, as we constantly have our minds focused on what is ahead and how our grades will affect our future. I was starting to ask myself why in the world I ever wanted to be a science major. And then neurochemistry reminded me why. The excitement of finally discovering how a pathway works or how different molecules interact with each other reminded me that learning is not just about getting good grades. I found myself drawing connections from the papers we read to concepts I had learned during my years at Concordia. When you can finally apply what you have learned in the many biology and chemistry courses to “real life” topics such as neurological diseases, you begin to feel the value of your knowledge. Before neurochemistry, I felt as though I knew a bunch of random information about receptors and enzymes, but after this course I now realize how important that knowledge is. For this reason, I believe neurochemistry is the epitome of what a capstone course should be: it, for lack of a better term, caps off your college experience. It connects everything I have learned and showed me how my knowledge will be used in the field I wish to spend my life in. Neurochemistry was exactly the class I needed to round out my education and make me feel comfortable moving into the next stage of my life.
The Community Action Project also played a large role in why neurochemistry was such an enjoyable course. This project allowed us to expand our knowledge outside of the classroom. We also worked with students from a totally different discipline at Concordia, something that doesn’t happen often. Looking at an issue facing our society alongside students who approached it from a different viewpoint than us was very helpful to understanding the interdisciplinary connections all throughout our society. We had to evaluate a need and truly decide what was the best approach to helping with that need. This let us tap into each person’s expertise and allowed us to understand the need from so many different perspectives. We were really able to BREW and make a difference within our school and community, something no other class has really allowed us to do.
Overall, I really enjoyed my time in neurochemistry and I am so glad I decided to take it as my CORE capstone experience. It was so nice to be in a classroom environment where the focus was learning and discovering, not testing. I now know my semesters at Concordia have given me a wealth of knowledge that I will be able to apply not only to my future professional career, but to other aspects of my communities. I am very thankful for my liberal arts education and how it provides me with opportunities such as this course.
During this course, we were able to rank topics according to our interests to form groups for a project that, throughout the semester, were going to work and engage the community in. I found the whole project inspiring, especially as it took the knowledge we learned in class and gave it a purpose outside of the course. Along with this, I found myself staying interested throughout this course as each week we tackled a new topic not for the goal of just learning it but engaging this knowledge to discuss the implications of what we had learned to medicine, the well-being of our community, and science.
Working together with students studying Social Work during our Community Action Project helped us to build an interdisciplinary project. This was worthwhile, especially with my teams project focusing on mental health, as we had to focus on the science of mental health, but also the resources and supports important at our campus and in the community. During weekly discussions, we were also encouraged to answer questions posed by discussion leaders that often involved thinking about a variety of implications and perspectives.
As a capstone to my Neuroscience major at Concordia College, Neurochemistry has addressed all five of the college goals for liberal learning. As a course, I believe we have discussed as many diverse topics as possible and related them to the topic of the course, neurochemistry. We learned about and discussed everything from Alzheimer’s Disease to medical marijuana, while also addressing each topic from our unique perspectives. Within the course, we had psychology students, neuroscience students, chemistry students, biology students, pre-pharmacy students, pre-medical students, musicians, athletes, student leaders, and a whole gambit of personal experiences to draw from. 
Instill a love of learning. 
The fifth and final goal of liberal learning, “encourage responsible participation in the world,” came through in not only our class discussions, but our community action projects. As an aspect of the course, we worked in groups to address an issue within the community related to mental illness, PTSD, Alzheimer’s Disease, or Autism Spectrum Disorder. The community action project that the group I was part of addressed the stigma of mental health on campus. At Concordia, there is a pressure to identify as a “Happy Cobber.” The phrase is well-known among students and distressful to many. Additionally, the college Instagram account at the beginning of the year posted a photo of Kernel, the school mascot, leaning against the words, “NO BAD DAYS.” Within a few hours, the post was deleted due to the backlash of students who thought it was wrong for the college to insinuate that students cannot have bad days or that the statement was invalidating the experience of many Cobbers with mental health conditions. Knowing these things, the goal of our project was to raise awareness of the realness of mental health on campus through a social media takeover on Concordia’s official Instagram page. We addressed the “Happy Cobber” and proposed the “Real Cobber.” I recorded and edited videos of students, faculty, and community resources discussing the stigma of mental health on campus, the resources available to students on and off campus, and the message that participants had for individuals struggling with mental health. All of these videos were posted on the college Instagram story, and for the first time, a discussion of mental health was coming from the official Concordia social media profile. Likewise, we tabled during Mental Health Awareness week as a group to raise advocate against the stigma of mental health, raise awareness of the neurochemistry behind mental illness, and provide information regarding on and off campus resources. Due to its impact and originality, this community action project was likely my favorite way that I have became responsibly engaged in the world for a class project during my time at Concordia.
Discussing obesity becomes difficult when considering every side of the “argument.” Between social advocacy to the neurochemistry of weight, many perspectives have to be considered. Body positivity has been a growing concept within society over the past decade, and I would argue that this is a good thing. Often, body image is a socially derived concept and is not just the individual’s physical appearance, but how the individual perceives themselves. In many cases, due to societal pressures, people perceive themselves as heavier than they actually are. These perceptions may lead to mental health concerns, primarily the development of eating disorders. Reward related brain areas are involved in eating disorders. Specifically, in bulimia nervosa, bingeing on foods that taste good leads to the release of dopamine, while the purging of food reduces the signal or effectiveness of acetylcholine. Acetylcholine signaling normally indicates when an individual is full or nutritionally satisfied. In anorexia nervosa, research has suggested that food intake following periods of starvation increases the amount and effect of dopamine within the reward pathway. In cases of anorexia, individuals tend to have a variant of the 5HT2A serotonin receptor responsible for releasing too much serotonin during non-starvation periods. Researchers hypothesize that an individual with anorexia may feel better during a starvation period because it reduces the amount of serotonin. In contrast, individuals with bulimia and binge eating disorder experience lower-than-normal levels of serotonin. In these cases, the individual tends to excessively eat in order to increase serotonin and decrease depressed mood.
Although we understand the issue of obesity from a medical perspective, the social aspect must also be considered. In many cases, individuals who are deemed overweight by physicians do not receive proper medical care. Likewise, individuals of a higher BMI are less likely to seek medical advice, typically due to stigma and the fear of being judged. As someone who has worked in a hospital, I have seen these tendencies first-hand. I have heard nurses comment about a patient’s weight in a derogatory manner, often blaming the patient for their health concerns. As many of us prepare to enter the medical field in some way, we need to consider all aspects of someone’s condition, not just their weight. People are more than their BMI, and typically, weight is a genetically-determined factor within the whole scheme of an individual’s wellness. 
