Most of the time as a pre-med student, you just hear that everyone’s doing research and that’s it. It’s rare that you’re put in an environment where you can actually learn about the research these students are doing while conducting your own research. The Brackenridge scholarship advertises a cohesive and interactive learning environment where you can both share and learn about research fellow FHC students are doing. This aspect is what initially got my attention on the Brackenridge fellowship. Through this, I want to know how broad the range of the research is on this campus. The only things I’ve really heard about is biology based researched and maybe a little chemistry related research, but I’m certain there are more unique forms of research on campus.
As the program has gone on I’ve begun to draw many similarities and differences in my research compared to other research projects. For example, I’m being introduced to the coding side of research and the same seems to be occurring with many other students. My coding is being done to try and improve the app as best as possible to get the most accurate medical results. Other people have been doing coding for non medical related reasons. One project that particularly caught my interest was one that dealt with looking at the neurological basis of the outward behavior in adolescents. As a psychology major, most of what we learn about is the external results of neurological processes, so hearing about what is chemically or electrically going on internally always catches my interest. Especially because being an adolescent is such an abstruse age range to analyze due to how broad it is and peoples varying rates of development. Hearing about such interesting neuro research projects makes me want to dive deeper into neuroscience. This is one of the reasons why I think an interdisciplinary program like this is beneficial.
Throughout my first two years in college, I’ve realized no one has entirely figured it out, and many people are still on the prowl for the best match of major, career, etc. Oftentimes, there is a match out there, but students just are yet to hear about it. Interdisciplinary programs can serve as a gateway for students to uncover a new subject of interest for them. That new subject could just happen to be the match that they’ve been looking for all this time. The only downside of interdisciplinary programs is that if you’re researching something that is unpopular, then it’ll be hard for you to explain it to someone that has no background on the topic for two reasons. One, they won’t be as engaged, two, they don’t possess the basic information to understand the research. However, this is not something I’ve seen occur in this fellowship. Everyone has been explaining their projects well and willing to learn about everyone else’s project.
