My senior year of high school was filled with one question, where to go to college. This is a typical question most high school seniors face. I still remember half way through my senior year, I went to a preview day for Concordia, and I remember sitting in the old chemistry lecture hall and listening to Dr. Krogstad talk about chemistry. Then he mentioned the neurochemistry class, the way he describe it assured me that I want to go to Concordia and when I did, neurochemistry was one of the first classes on my 4 year plan. Once I began my education at Concordia, I can see it’s different compared to other schools, the professors cared about who I am and what I want to do but they didn’t spoon feed me an education. Instead, they challenged me in ways I couldn’t have ever imagined.
The challenges I faced throughout the last 3 and a half years of college have shaped my perspective of the world and I think that is one thing that Concordia does very well. I grew personally, academically, and professionally but this past year has been the most influential on my life. This past year, I took my MCAT (by far the hardest thing up to now) and I applied to medical school. I had an interview in mid September, you might think that I am talking about this process as what influenced my life so much but its actually the classes I am in.
My neurochemistry class and my experience as an anatomy lab teaching assistant really made my year special. Being a teacher’s assistant opened my eyes up to the other side of a class, the side where there is so much work put in to make tests, quizzes, and help the students learn the best they can. As important as that experience has been for me, the experience of reading about current medical issues and trying to find ways for possible solutions got me the most excited. Every Monday I look forward to walking into the class sharing my knowledge, finding the weak points to look up for Wednesday and share it again. That process alone has taught me how difficult it is to figure out the solutions to things and how hard work is the best way to approach any of these problems. Fridays were always a favorite of mine as we sit down and discuss how the research we did can reflect onto our society.
My favorite project of all semester is the community action project. The thing with societies is that nothing is simple, an issue that you think is bad you will find out it is worse once you delve into it. For example, my group project was about the opioid crisis in the Fargo-Moorhead area. Before my group and I looked at the problem, we all knew the FM area has been struggling with this problem for a while. However, we didn’t know how severe this was until we looked into it. Once we looked at it, it showed to us all that this problem is something that needs action as soon as possible. What was fun about this is sitting there and finding a way to raise awareness of this issue and being able to tap into the real world, find resources and contact them.
To me this class has hit every one of my expectations and surpassed them. I am so glad that I was so determined to take this class. This has been one of the most memorable classes I have taken and it all has to do with the unique way this class is structured.
