starvingstudent
08-04-08, 10:30 AM
I posted this on the College/Univ forum, but it felt relevant here, as I changed it a bit:
--------------------------
Hey yall! Im a 21 year old rising senior in college majoring in Psychology. However, i just changed my major last year (from Sociology). Now I am interested in Neuroscience, but my school has a lot of biology requirements for neuroscience, and I simply dont have room in my schedule to take them.
I regret that I do not have a better Neural Science/Biology foundation, but I can't imagine me having studied it in any different order -- Sociology, Psychology, Neuroscience/Biology (from macro to micro). That's just the way I think, anyone else feel like that?
Anyway, I after learning more about psych, I decided to confront my long time struggle with reading. I had LD tests before, but did fine on them (but that's because I can decode language fine, and pay attention to people talking to me or asking questions, but I do not read long text very well). This summer, I was diagnosed with ADD (and he also said perhaps OCD, but frankly that surprised me) and prescribed me adderall.
I hate to say it, but adderall has really changed everything. I used to have to sacrifice my social life to keep up with school, and it wasn't worth it. Now I can read and research more efficiently. I can tune out anxiety and distractions (internal and external ones).
I feel like I could totally see myself being a neuroscience nerd now. However, its so hard throwing together a plan this late in my academic career. I am from CA, and want to move back home and take classes at a state or UC school since the tuition will be more affordable than the pricey private school i go to back east. However, none of them seem to have terminal master's programs related to neuroscience (only PHD programs).
I had very little foundation in biology and neural science, so I don't feel ready for a PHD program. Also, my interests are still too broad and ideas too half baked. I can't see myself being a research assistant or lab manager yet, because I don't think I would find the methods and administrative part relevant without having enough frame of reference to formulate my own questions. I don't have a career goal in mind, and the labs seem so specialized. Like im interested in ADHD, but psych labs on attention seem to focus on eye movements, and psychiatry labs on medication -- i don't know what direction to go in yet!
I just wanna take classes and learn how the brain works. I know that is typical regretful college kid talk, but i have finally found something i can see myself doing passionately, and obviously confronting my adhd is a major turning point for me, and i don't want to give up or just concede "maybe next lifetime" just because i am a few years behind most people who go in these fields.
is there any middle ground? anyway to cost efficient way to take more classes on neuroscience? what are the practical logistics of career options that i should keep in mind instead of just "wanting to study how the brain works"?
Also, are there any good labs or researchers or institutions that might be interested to look into for ADHD research? The thing about a lot of the psych articles ive read is that they focus on the outcome but not the mechanism or process.
<!-- / message -->
--------------------------
Hey yall! Im a 21 year old rising senior in college majoring in Psychology. However, i just changed my major last year (from Sociology). Now I am interested in Neuroscience, but my school has a lot of biology requirements for neuroscience, and I simply dont have room in my schedule to take them.
I regret that I do not have a better Neural Science/Biology foundation, but I can't imagine me having studied it in any different order -- Sociology, Psychology, Neuroscience/Biology (from macro to micro). That's just the way I think, anyone else feel like that?
Anyway, I after learning more about psych, I decided to confront my long time struggle with reading. I had LD tests before, but did fine on them (but that's because I can decode language fine, and pay attention to people talking to me or asking questions, but I do not read long text very well). This summer, I was diagnosed with ADD (and he also said perhaps OCD, but frankly that surprised me) and prescribed me adderall.
I hate to say it, but adderall has really changed everything. I used to have to sacrifice my social life to keep up with school, and it wasn't worth it. Now I can read and research more efficiently. I can tune out anxiety and distractions (internal and external ones).
I feel like I could totally see myself being a neuroscience nerd now. However, its so hard throwing together a plan this late in my academic career. I am from CA, and want to move back home and take classes at a state or UC school since the tuition will be more affordable than the pricey private school i go to back east. However, none of them seem to have terminal master's programs related to neuroscience (only PHD programs).
I had very little foundation in biology and neural science, so I don't feel ready for a PHD program. Also, my interests are still too broad and ideas too half baked. I can't see myself being a research assistant or lab manager yet, because I don't think I would find the methods and administrative part relevant without having enough frame of reference to formulate my own questions. I don't have a career goal in mind, and the labs seem so specialized. Like im interested in ADHD, but psych labs on attention seem to focus on eye movements, and psychiatry labs on medication -- i don't know what direction to go in yet!
I just wanna take classes and learn how the brain works. I know that is typical regretful college kid talk, but i have finally found something i can see myself doing passionately, and obviously confronting my adhd is a major turning point for me, and i don't want to give up or just concede "maybe next lifetime" just because i am a few years behind most people who go in these fields.
is there any middle ground? anyway to cost efficient way to take more classes on neuroscience? what are the practical logistics of career options that i should keep in mind instead of just "wanting to study how the brain works"?
Also, are there any good labs or researchers or institutions that might be interested to look into for ADHD research? The thing about a lot of the psych articles ive read is that they focus on the outcome but not the mechanism or process.
<!-- / message -->