Cobbers on the Brain – Page 92 – Student Commentary on the Neurological Sciences

The Capstone of My College Career or the Cornerstone of Something More

Posted on May 5, 2017 by / 0 Comment

The first day of Neurochemistry. The last first day of college as it happened to be. I was a senior chemistry major and all I could think was here we go another lecture course about chemistry. I have been doing this since freshman year, nothing will be different. Oh was I wrong.
While the first few weeks did have lecture so that we would all have the basics that is not what the class was about. Suddenly I found myself having to post on a wiki and use computers and the internet far more often. I am more of a paper and pen kind of student. I like my textbooks with actual pages and my notebooks bound. Instead of a textbook I got to go out and find the research myself. This was not at all what I was expecting.
Then we got past the basics and things became even less structured. Every week we have a new published paper to try to understand. You never quite appreciate how wordy scientist are until you try to read a full neurochemistry article on Sunday night. However every week it got easier. I would sit down with my printed out paper and a highlighter and try to find the important parts of the paper. Google was my constant companion for the inevitable words I did not know. The best part was that if I did not understand the article I could hear about how others had understood it on Monday. We would all ask questions and each take a thing to research and report back on what we found on Wednesday. By Friday we had all hopefully had a good idea of the paper and were able to discuss it together in the comfortable chairs in the campus center. This is how I learned neurochemistry.
The things I learned in neurochemistry cover a wide variety of topics. As much as people say weed is not a harmful drug it will still mess with your brain. Mental illness is definitely genetic but how you live your life can impact it. Concussions are scary and I still don’t understand why people want to do sports. Protein build-ups in the brain are terrible and are some of the driving factors behind Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s Disease. Most of all exercise and eating right are very beneficial to your brain.
The best thing I learned in neurochemistry is how to learn. I am now looking at graduating from college and going out into the real world where there will be no lectures and no homework. There will be no structured way for me to learn new things in chemistry. There will be no textbooks to read as I will have to keep up with advancements in the field as they are made. Facing this daunting task I am so glad to have taken neurochemistry. From all the practice I know how to find good science articles. Working to understand each weeks article has given me the skills to try to understand articles that I pick out. Now I can face the challenges I set for myself.
Overcoming challenges can also be very rewarding. One of the greatest challenges in neurochemistry was the tests. How do you make tests in a class that has no right answers. Well we are given the bulleted outline of a paper and have to come up with the pathway and interactions we think it is talking about. These test are the closest thing I have come across in class to actually doing science in the real world. You must take bits of information you have gathered and bring it together into a cohesive whole. Granted when you do research you tend to get your information from your own experiments not just from the outline of a paper but it still holds. The tests were challenging but I have not been as proud of getting a good score on a test as when I did well on the neurochemistry exams.
As I go out into the big wide world I go with the knowledge I have collected from my four years here at Concordia. I would like to thank a great many people; My professors for teaching me about chemistry, My peers for teaching me how to love science, and Neurochemistry for teaching me that I really do know science and even when I don’t I can always learn.

Disease/Health

Dementia Sucks

Posted on May 5, 2017 by / 0 Comment

If you have a family member that suffers from some form of dementia, you’ll know that the title of this blog is extremely accurate – dementia really sucks for everyone involved.

My grandmother began showing signs of dementia about 10 years ago. My sister and I would go to her house every weekend, and she began to have a hard time telling us apart and mixing up our names. This was very odd, but we didn’t think much about it at the time. It has now progressed to the point where she does not recognize anyone in the family, including my dad – her son.

How does this happen to someone who used to be so witty and sharp-minded? I understand there is severe neurological deterioration occurring in her brain that is causing the dementia, but there is something so unsettling about not being recognizable to someone you care about so much. I’m sure this feeling is much worse for my dad, but I also cannot imagine my grandma’s perspective – seeing a face you know you should be able to identify, but not being able to do so. The thought of that is so horrifying I would not wish it upon anyone.

I think everyone can agree on how terrible dementia is, but many may not be aware of how many different types of dementia there are. To be exact, there are ten different things that could be causing symptoms of dementia:

Alzheimer’s Dementia
Vascular Dementia
Parkinson’s Dementia
Dementia with Lewy Bodies
Huntington’s Disease
Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease
Frontotemporal Dementia
Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus
Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome
Mixed Dementia

While it is daunting to know there are so many different forms of dementia, Alzheimer’s Disease is by far the most common. The disease is thought to be caused by certain proteins accumulating in the brain and sticking together to form toxic clumps. These clumps, or aggregations, lead to damage of healthy brain tissue, resulting in cognitive decline, confusion, and memory impairment.

Alzheimer’s Disease comes with many terrible symptoms. Contrary to what many people may think, however, Alzheimer’s is not actually considered a cause of death. Rather, people suffering from Alzheimer’s pass from other complications that are not properly cared for. Severe Alzheimer’s Disease can hinder a person’s ability to take care of themselves. Weight loss can occur from not remembering to eat or drink, which can lead to dehydration and organ failure. Bed ridden patients may pass from out-of-control infections of pressure ulcers. Alzheimer’s sufferers may also experience difficulties in swallowing. This can result in small food particles being trapped in the airways, likely progressing into pneumonia.

Sadly, the only medications that are really being used are only directed towards treating the symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease. The exact causes and neurochemical pathways remain elusive, making it very difficult to prevent and treat the actual disease. For as long as we have known about Alzheimer’s, little progress has been made in uncovering its mysteries. This is an extremely hopeless feeling, and the statement above still holds too true – dementia sucks.

Health

How to Make Money With a Bucket of Ice

Posted on May 5, 2017 by / 0 Comment

It was not that long ago that everyone who was anyone was dumping ice water all over themselves. Sounds crazy, but hey it was for a good cause. The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge in 2014 was one of the greatest fund-raising events science has ever seen. Here are the results. With over $115 million raised in 2014 and $220 million in total raised to help find the cure for ALS. One has to wonder how much impact this actually had. Well to understand that we first need to understand the basics of what ALS is.
ALS stands for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. It is a degenerative disease in the motor neurons. Motor neurons are in charge of telling your body to move. This makes them very important. If you lose your motor neurons you do not just lose you ability to move your arms and legs but also more important things like the ability to breath and to swallow. This is why ALS is such a dangerous disease to have because most individuals die within 2 years of diagnosis due to issues with their lungs.
In the neurons what happens is not always known. The research suggests that ALS is due to oxidation stress. As we go about our day-to-day lives our bodies are constantly doing chemistry. Thousands of tiny chemical reactions are responsible for keeping us alive. Some of these reactions create products that are very reactive but serve no purpose in the body, these are oxidative species and it they are not dealt with by the cell they can cause damage to cell structures or even DNA itself. When DNA gets too damaged it can no longer express the genes we need to live. This is what is happening in ALS the oxidative stress causes DNA damage that then leads to more oxidative species being made and the cycle continues until the motor neurons die.
This leads to a lot of questions about ALS. What starts the cycle is it the oxidative stress causes DNA damage or could it be that DNA gets damaged and then causes more oxidative stress? Is there any way to diagnose ALS early? If we can diagnose early can we stop it? How do we stop oxidative stress? Well we have all this money raised by the ice bucket challenge so we will be able to answer all the questions we have. Right?
No. Science is complicated and expensive. New research and medicine take time. However we have been able to find some new things. Two of the labs funded by the ice bucket challenge have independently identified a gene that is linked to developing ALS. So it is possible that in the near future people could get tested for this gene and know if they are likely to get ALS. But we still don’t have a cure. More research needs to be done.
Great. We will just hold an ice bucket challenge every year so we have enough money to fund all of the needed research. Then we will be sure to find the cure. Well, the amazing thing is that the ice bucket challenge even worked the first time. It was so popular and spread across the internet so fast there was no way to plan it. It just happened naturally. This poses a problem for the ice bucket challenge to be anything but a one time deal. It is not really a sustainable way to fund scientific research. However one way to insure steady funding for scientific research is through federal research grants.
YOU can help with this by contacting your representatives and letting them know how important it is that scientific research be funded. With the help of stable funding and and things like the ice bucket challenge maybe we can see the end of ALS sometime in the future. If you want to do more NOW visit als.org.

Community/Disease/Health/Hot topics

Are You a Type II Diabetic? You May Want to Read This.

Posted on May 5, 2017 by / 0 Comment

It’s almost impossible to go throughout your life without hearing about a loved one or a loved one of a friend going through Alzheimer’s Disease. Aside from early onset AD, it is pretty difficult to look at this disease and say that age has nothing to do with it. This, of course, is true because a lot of the machinery that goes wrong in this condition doesn’t just happen right away (in most cases). For instance, think about one of the most common culprits pointed out in Alzheimer’s which is Amyloid Beta. This protein is not one that just simply pops up in your cells when you are born. Amyloid beta is a protein that slowly builds up throughout our lives and it’s really a shot in the dark whether it will hit a point that will begin to exacerbate the issues that lead to Alzheimer’s.

Something that is concerning is the association between insulin resistance and Alzheimer’s Disease. I found in several articles that insulin plays an important role in neuromodulation within the neurons in our brains. Insulin has a role in regulating the amount of Amyloid Beta within our neurons. In people that have type II diabetes, they have a resistance to insulin, requiring more insulin to be circulated throughout their bodies to regulate their blood sugar. The concerning part of this is that in our brains we have an enzyme called Insulin Degrading Enzyme, IDE, which is responsible for the degradation of insulin within our cells. Secondarily, IDE is responsible for clearing out Amyloid Beta from our cells. In the case of a Type II diabetic, there is an overabundance of insulin to account for the resistance which results in competing for the activity of IDE leading to a long-term buildup of Amyloid beta without the ability to clear it up which IDE would do in bodies that have normal insulin capabilities. This finding points to a possibility that type II diabetics are at a much higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease than those that don’t have it.

The takeaway point from this is that if you do have type II diabetes you are not guaranteed to develop AD. The nice part about the human body is that if you treat it well, it will respond with performing at its best. If you are able to monitor your blood sugar regularly and keep your body from overusing insulin, there is a good chance you will be able to fight off the cognitive decline that comes with Alzheimer’s.

Community

All of That…For This? My Capstone Experience

Posted on May 5, 2017 by / 0 Comment

Concordia College requires all students take a capstone course before they graduate. The purpose of this course is to ensure that all students achieve the 5 goals of liberal learning laid out by the college. Neurochemistry counted as my capstone course and honestly, I feel like I got the easy way out. I know friends that have taken their capstone courses for things like writing and film that have to build a large portfolio to fulfill class requirements. While neurochemistry was informative and enjoyable, I never once felt challenged, but maybe I was just well-prepared for the course.
The first goal of liberal learning is a love of learning. While my love of learning has grown and changed since coming to Concordia, I feel comfortable making the assumption that many of us are here because of our love of learning in the first place. For almost everyone I know, we didn’t need a class to teach us how to love learning. Much of the material in Neurochemistry was self or peer taught so one could argue that you need your love of learning to be self-motivated enough to be successful in the course.

“Foundational skills and transferable intellectual capabilities” is the second goal of liberal learning. According to Concordia’s website, “Foundational skills allow a person to do something; intellectual capacities enable a person to know when to do something, how to adapt it, and when to do it in a new way.” While we certainly had to use these skills to critically read a paper each week and communicate its findings, I don’t think Neurochemistry taught us these skills.
Goal three is to “understand and integrate multiple perspectives.” Again, we used these skills extensively in Neurochemistry when making connections between what we were learning and other courses we had taken. However, we do this in almost every course, the integration of information is not unique to Neurochemistry.
Goal four, “examined cultural, ethical, and spiritual well-being” is addressed in many of my classes but Neurochemistry was one of the first science classes that it had been stressed in. Each week, we had a different topic that usually related to some sort of neurological disorder. Every Friday, was spent discussing the implications of the paper and topic and how that might change everyone, not just scientists. While many of my classes have been discussion based, Neurochemistry was the first “science” course to have such a strong emphasis on this kind of discussion.

Finally goal five is “responsible participation in local, national, and global communities.” This is really the only goal that is unique to Neurochemistry. As part of the course, we were required to do a community action project that would ideally benefit the local community. My group had great ideas but didn’t really see our project come to fruition because we were unable to make the right contacts in the community. Aside from the roadblocks my group faced, the course did a decent job of demonstrating the importance of this kind of community engagement.

Concordia has recently shifted to requiring PEAK experiences instead of a capstone. A blog on the website states,

“Beginning in 2017, first-year students will be required to complete two college-approved integrated learning experiences before graduation. These are called Pivotal Experiences in Applied Knowledge (PEAK) and may be integrated into program-specific or interdisciplinary courses or they may be designed like an independent study.”

Having already participated in projects that have received PEAK “approval” for future years, I think shifting to this model will be beneficial. I’m not saying that I thought Neurochemistry wasn’t a good use of my time; I am just not convinced that the capstone-like experiences in Neurochemistry were unique to this course. And perhaps that is why Concordia is switching to the PEAK model. From the time we are first-year students, we are already participating in courses designed to fill the five goals of liberal learning so a designated capstone course doesn’t feel all that different.

Health

Should We Restrict Athletes From Competing if They’ve Had Multiple Concussions?

Posted on May 5, 2017 by / 0 Comment

Concussion awareness is on the rise among high school and college sports. More and more athletes are being required to take baseline tests such as the ImPACT. Coaches and trainers are paying more attention to when their athletes take a big hit and should be checked out.

These are all great things, but many schools and teams are also starting to put a limit on the number of concussions an athlete can sustain before they are restricted from competing. For safety reasons, this seems extremely logical. Researchers suspect that sustaining multiple concussions can negatively impact cognitive function later in life. However, as an athlete myself, it is very difficult to imagine someone else telling me that I am no longer able to play my sport.

Before I get too far into this debate, it’s important to know what a concussion is and how it affects the brain. A concussion occurs when there is an impact or jolt that causes the brain the collide into the walls of the skull. This can cause the brain to swell or bleed, possibly leading to serious cognitive complications. The brain also experiences a shift in ionic flux, resulting in an increased demand for the body to produce ATP, the body’s energy currency. ATP is used to transport ions in and out of cells. When ionic levels are thrown off balance, the body has to work harder than normal to restore them back to normal. This can put additional stress on the brain as it tries to keep up ATP production with the demands of the injury. Researchers think this may be why you experience headaches and other symptoms of concussions.

In contact sports, a major concern is that athletes are exposed to repetitive head trauma. Repeated blows to the head can have serious long term consequences. For example, many retired NFL players have developed chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a brain disorder induced by repeated head trauma. The associated cognitive decline is a gradual process. Thus, symptoms develop long after the injuries. Many of those affected have turned to substance abuse and suicide as a result. Therefore, this is a serious issue for athletes especially of contact sports, and I do agree it is important that we do everything we can to protect them.

Many of my non-athlete friends, and even my athlete friends who have never sustained a concussion have said they agree with the standards being implemented to restrict athletes from competing after a certain number of sustained concussions. They say it’s not worth the risk to keep playing. I completely agree. However, it is hard to imagine someone else telling me what I can and cannot do. As an athlete, I have developed a type of self-awareness, knowing my body’s limits and how much I can handle. For someone else to tell me I am unable to continue playing my sport would be incredibly difficult to agree and come to terms with.

My point here is: while it is important that schools monitor the health of the athlete’s, I think their own thoughts and perspectives should be taken into account. After all, they are the ones who may lose something they are passionate about, not the people who are restricting them.

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Neurochemistry: The Cherry on Top of My Concordia Experience

Posted on May 5, 2017 by / 0 Comment

I would like to formally thank the people that pushed me towards taking Neurochemistry as my capstone experience to be the cherry on top of my entire Concordia experience. As I worked through my science major and minors during my time at Concordia, I did not feel that spark from the exploratory side that science brings until I found neuroscience. Now, I’m not going to discount that lovely hit-you-in-the-face-you’re-a-big-kid-now feeling that I received from my year in organic chemistry but neuroscience has been a huge driving force that I have found pushing me further in my science career.
Through neurochemistry, I have found that there are many ways to find an answer to the questions we all have. My favorite method has been developed through Neurochemistry and that is simply self-exploration. Many of us forget that at any moment, we are able to answer almost any question with the use technology that we all keep within arm’s reach at all time. Before my final two years at Concordia, I just didn’t use technology to the potential I could and I still feel like I am headed in the right direction. Another thing that I discovered through exploring the field of neuroscience was the constant state of curiosity I carry for the brain. If you stop and think about it, we are only able to provide a solid explanation of the anatomy brain, but beyond that, there is an absolute vastness that revolves around millions of cells randomly passing an electric charge to signal from one cell to the other. Externally, one simple firing could be the process of us recalling our homework we were supposed to have finished a long time ago (like blog posts perhaps).
Regardless of what our brains are doing, it is amazing to me that each of these areas we are constantly looking at could be capable of performing one specific task throughout our lives. On the other hand, one area such as the thalamus could have numerous tasks which are absolutely mind-blowing because each of us expects each one of the systems in our brains to work at such an elevated level when in reality it seems like a miracle that they work at all. This, of course, brings me to the rant of how wild it is that one small chemical imbalance within our brains leads to so many different pathologies. One could be something mild that one may never notice throughout their life, whereas the other could be something socially crippling like schizophrenia leading to an altered sense of reality. At the end of the day, I am happy I had the opportunity to learn about the many different disorders we studied in Neurochemistry. I felt like it was a good BREWing experience because we didn’t look at the disorders at face value. Many of them involved a deeper look between the lines to find out where the research was coming from, what cultures might be more at risk, and several other contributing factors. That in itself is a really fun skill to have now that I take pride in is my ability to be more analytical when I read anything now.
My ever-growing curiosity about the brain and its workings has pointed me further down the path of neuroscience. Thankfully I can contribute a great deal of this curiosity to Neurochemistry because I was encouraged to ask critical questions about each of the disorders and I had to challenge myself to learn about my curiosities and share them with my classmates. That was a really cool aspect of the class was that we had to take it upon ourselves to dig up the answers to questions brought up in class to teach one another making it important to put forth a quality effort into researching our topics.

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My Neurochemistry Capstone Experience

Posted on May 5, 2017 by / 0 Comment

Neurochemistry wasn’t exactly my first choice for a capstone course (just hearing the name sounds scary and intimidating), however I had heard great things about the course so I decided to take a chance even with my very minimal background in Neuroscience and a slight distaste for Chemistry. But now as I reflect upon my capstone experience in the Neurochemistry course I took this semester, I am incredibly thankful for the information I learned and how this information will impact my viewpoints going forward.

In many ways I think my experience in Neurochemistry this semester fulfilled the Concordia College goals for liberal learning and will help me become more responsibly engaged in the world. Prior to this class, I did have some knowledge about the definitions of basic disorders of the brain, like Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia, and anxiety. Interestingly, I haven’t had much personal experience or known someone with a lot of these medical conditions that we discussed throughout the semester, so learning the pathways and epigenetic mechanisms that play a role in disorders like ALS, addiction, and Parkinson’s disease took my understanding of the brain to another level. At the same time, learning about these conditions was frustrating because there is so much information and research available, but in most cases there isn’t a cure and the treatments seemed generalized for everyone on a trial and error basis. This knowledge and appreciation for the neurochemical imbalances that can take place in the brain will definitely help me in my future career as a health professional and how I approach my life going forward.
A very important aspect of this Neurochemistry capstone was developing our skills at transferring our understanding of science to others. This occurred in several ways: writing blog posts about topics from the week, leading discussions about a certain disorder of the brain, doing more in-depth research on our topic of the week and sharing that in both written and oral form to our classmates, and finally completing our semester long community action project to inform the community about the neurochemical basis and social basis of different brain topics. In conjunction with many other sciences courses I have taken at Concordia, I have taken away that making sure that science is understandable and available to the general public extremely relevant and important for producing change. Science informs policy, it impacts our everyday choices, it influences our health, and much, much more. In order to have the biggest worldly impact through science, communicating its value to others who don’t have a background or as large of an appreciation for science is critical. Through this Neurochemistry course, I have gained more confidence in reading, researching, clearly communicating the scientific articles that I read.
One of the most fulfilling parts of this class was carrying out the community action project. My group decided to focus the topic of mental health on eating disorders. We found this a particularly relevant topic to communicate to our peers, coaches, and student athletes. It was a great way to learn more about a topic we hadn’t discussed in class and be able to educate others on the importance of understanding the science behind eating disorders and also how they impact us and others around us. I think this was another great example of how we used our knowledge gained in the Neurochemistry course to try to influence the affairs of the world, specifically getting a discussion going on campus about the prevalence of eating disorders in our age group and among student athletes.
In many ways, my favorite part of the class was our weekly Friday discussion days. This time was a great way to get together, try to dissect the science we had just read earlier in the week, try to come up with answers to questions (but mostly come up with more questions), and hear different perspectives on topics. I think this was a great way to meet the goal of creating interdisciplinary and intercultural perspectives and making connections with other areas of knowledge. I definitely brought a more biological and physiological perspective to the table, since my primary scientific interests lay there. But it was also great to hear and learn more from people who had more interest or a better background in the chemistry, genetics, and psychological aspects of our discussions.
Overall, my education at Concordia has instilled a love for learning. As I prepare to graduate this weekend I have thought several times about how four years here has been enough, but also how it hasn’t. I am so thankful for everything that I have learned, but I know there are so many things I still don’t know about Biology, Chemistry, the arts, Religion and that I truly and deeply want to learn about it all! In this way, my liberal arts education has taught me that there are always more things, and very interesting things to learn in many different disciplines and that every opportunity to learn and ask questions should be taken.

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Autism: Could It Really Be? a Zinc Deficiency?

Posted on May 5, 2017 by / 0 Comment

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that autism is present in 1 in 68 children and is almost four times more prevalent in males than females. Autism speaks classifies autism as “…a range of conditions characterized by challenges with social skills, repetitive behaviors, speech and nonverbal communication, as well as by unique strengths and differences.” This shows that autism is more often referred to as a spectrum disorder, which implies that there are no exact set symptoms that an individual will exhibit.

There are several ways that autism can be caused in utero. First, is simply by genetic mutations which is seen in almost every disease in the human species. However, since there has been a higher prevalence in recent years of autism it is believed that there are more factors than just genetics. One of the risk factors is a prenatal viral infection of the mother. Prenatal influenza, rubella, and cytomegalovirus infections show a strong correlation with the development of autism. Another possible cause is prenatal stress. It has been shown that there is higher prevalence of autism when a mother is stressed while pregnant. Finally, there is the strong correlation between prevalence of autism and the presence of certain toxins. The most important of these toxins are valproic acid and thalidomide. Both of these have demonstrated an increased risk of fetus’ developing autism.

Now before I continue I think it is important to note that autism arises during development in utero and CANNOT BE CAUSED BY VACCINES! Get your child vaccinated so we don’t have any outbreaks occur!

Please excuse my digression. However, the most interesting potential cause for autism is a zinc deficiency. Zinc homeostasis is essential for proper brain development and function. Zinc is also the second most abundant trace element in the body and is involved in many bodily and neuronal processes. It’s most important function in the human body is its presence in presynaptic vesicles on neurons. It is important to note that according to Andreas Grabrucker “…in a recent study…the incidence rate of zinc-deficiency in the infant-group aged 0-3-year-old was estimated 43.5% in male and 52.5% in female.” This shows a very close association between zinc-deficiency and autism. To make the link even closer a zinc deficiency is known to cause learning and memory impairments, behavioral problems, and can cause seizures. This is important because there are many autistic patients that also have epilepsy.

Now I know this seems kind of scary because how are you supposed to know if you or your child is getting enough zinc? Well I can’t help with this problem, but I can help you to know what you should be eating to ensure proper zinc levels. The top ten foods that contain the highest zinc levels are as follows: Oysters, beef and lamb, wheat germ, spinach, pumpkin and squash seeds, cashews, cocoa powder, pork and chicken, beans, and mushrooms. So you see, it does not matter your diet preference we can all consume the perfect amount of zinc. By simply doing this it can lower the chance of having an autistic child.

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Everyday I’m BREWing

Posted on May 5, 2017 by / 0 Comment

Coming out of high school we all know how tough it is to decide what you want to do with your life or where you want to go. Being from Mesa, Arizona I only knew one thing…I wanted to leave there and see another part of the country. I visited schools in Iowa, Colorado, and in Minnesota and after 10 plus visits I finally settled at Concordia. I mean after all I was kind of a legacy at this school. My aunt is in the athletic hall of fame for winning a national championship here and my great grandfather is former Concordia College president Joseph Knutson (his statue is in the Knutson Campus Center). The decision was one of the best I have made in my life.

The first reason it was the best choice is that I got to continue to play the sport I love, but being able to put education first was key. I played golf at this college for four years, amassing 23 top-25s and finishing 3^rd all-time in career scoring average. Most importantly though I was privileged enough to become captain the past two years and to be able to show the other men how to make the right choices. This allowed me to make an imprint on my fellow teammates and shape how they think about the world. It is important to stress the ability to instill a hard work ethic, the same work ethic that I learned in Chemistry 127-128 in my freshman year. Golf provided me an outlet and allowed me to grow as a man and a kid trying to become a responsibly engaged in the world.

The education at Concordia is grueling and the teachers are not shy about pushing you to exceed your expectations. They push you to set higher goals and expand your horizons. Dr. Mach of my Neurochemistry class has done this just as much as anyone. In her class we looked at 9 neurodegenerative diseases the plague the world at this time and each week I found myself becoming more engaged in the material and thirsting for more knowledge on the topics. In life, there is no easy road and I am constantly going to keep driving forward and the thirst for knowledge that Concordia has instilled in me will make that happen.

The well-rounded curriculum at Concordia College has allowed me to be a science major but also take classes in global studies, English, and humanities while also focusing on my major. This allows me to make connections between fields of study that I would not have had the ability to do at a large university. It has become easier for me to see problems from many different angles and has allowed me to see the world from a new lens. All this allows me to become a more responsible citizen in a global community.

Finally, we get to my capstone experience, the peak of the mountain, the cherry on top of the sundae. Taking Neurochemistry for any science major is a must. The ability to have a free flowing classroom where we all participate and are not lectured at for an hour provides an experience where we all learn together. We research was interests us and are not confined to a bubble of material that the professor assigns. Dr. Mach gave all of us the freedom to follow our passion and this was especially exemplified in the blog posts and the community action project. The blog posts only requirement was that they had to focus on the week’s topic and provide some science. This allowed me to write a biography one week and provide research another. These gave me the chance to provide my own learning into the topic.

The community action project was another highlight of my undergraduate education. Logan, Hannah, and I decided to focus on ALS a debilitating neuro disease that has no cure and is a death sentence. Based on Dr. Mach’s instructions whatever we did just had to be focused on ALS and this gave us the freedom to act as ambassadors to the ALS association and try and promote the ALS walk in Fargo, ND on Saturday August 19 at 10:00am. We contacted radio station executives in an effort to get air time to discuss the walk and are still in negotiations, but this experience allowed us to leave the bubble on campus and promote change on a larger scale. To experience the real world and try to make a difference. Hopefully we are successful in the end.

My time at Concordia has come and gone and I am thankful for the opportunity to attend a college that allowed me to grow as a man. A place where the professors push you to excellence, but at the same time provide you with the support needed. A place where I was able to follow my passion of playing golf and also provide me with a rigorous education. However, now it is time to enter the real world and I know wherever I go, Concordia has provided me with a launch pad into the future.