Hi friends! My name is Sarah Hulse, and I’m an Honors Ambassador currently completing my sophomore year of college. I am a Psychology major with certificates in American Sign Language and the Conceptual Foundations of Medicine (and more than a little emphasis on pre-medicine training). Presently, I am also applying into the Honors College’s Bachelor…
Striving Towards the Asymptote of Perfect Performance
As human beings, we’re accustomed to the idea that a fixed amount of effort will produce an expected result. If we study diligently for a test, we’ll get a good grade. If we work hard in the gym, we’ll get stronger. I think one of the hardest parts of being a researcher is that this…
Semester Reflection: Two-Yard Runs
At the beginning of this semester my Principal Investigator, Dr. Samer Tohme, stressed that this process would require a lot of patience. He emphasized that progress in research is slow, occasionally frustrating, and anything but linear. He compared it to running the ball in football. There were going to be a lot of two-yard runs,…
Concluding Thoughts: The Duality of a Student-Teacher
“More than mere consumers of technology, we are makers, adapting technology to our needs and integrating it into our lives. Some of us are born makers and others, like me, become makers almost without realizing it.” – Dale Dougherty, MAKE Magazine, 2005 This quote is from MAKE magazine, one of the many readings in Dr….
Reflecting On My CURF Experience
The Chancellor’s Undergraduate Research Fellowship (CURF) has proven to be one of my most valuable experiences as a Pitt student thus far. In collaborating with a mentor that I may not have had an opportunity to work with otherwise, aside from enrolling in a class, I was able to form a meaningful relationship with Professor…
Accepting Failure and Asking Questions: What I learnt in my CURF experience and what I am doing next
For my project for the CURF this Fall, I worked on “Characterization of Post-Traumatic Seizure Events and Systemic Inflammation Following Moderate-to-Severe TBI”. When I first started thinking about my research project, I began with a general outline of all the steps I needed to take to achieve the best possible results. Everything from sample collection…
Stop, Breathe, Reevaluate, Repeat: A Reflection on My CURF Experience
Going into this research project, I definitely overestimated how much time I would have to research everything that I wanted to. I was so excited to examine the role that prejudice and xenophobia played in immigration during times of disease that I tried to take on way more than what was feasible and realistic. Initially,…
Community and Care in Learning/Teaching
“‘Education at its best—this profound human transaction called teaching and learning—is not just about getting information or getting a job. Education is about healing and wholeness. It is about empowerment, liberation, transcendence, about renewing the vitality of life. It is about finding and claiming ourselves and our place in the world.’ Since our place in…
Final Strokes: Finishing Up My CUTF Experience
This semester has been a challenging one to say the least. From a student perspective, I have never felt so overwhelmed by both academic work and outside stressors. Zoom is frustrating, and especially as someone who has mosly hands on art and theatre classes left take, just not the same. And while we’ve had to…
Growth in a Digital Fall: My CUTF Experience
Working with Professor Gretchen Bender this semester as a teaching assistant for Museums: Society and Inclusion? gave me the opportunity to grow both as a student of Art History and as an educator. As a recipient of a Chancellor’s Undergraduate Teaching Fellowship, I was able to explore the concept of media in museums, both in…
