Dumbing Down
It's Hump-Day!
Congratulations, you've officially made it half-way through the week! If you're having a week like I am, then you are currently experiencing the Moody Midterm Blues as I like to call them. I have a thousand tests and no energy. So, things are going really great. Michigan is also currently getting DUMPED ON (literally.) The forecast calls for snow all day, every day and we'll never see the sun again. (Thus why I tan for a few minutes each week. I need that Vitamin D.)
I'm going to be very candid here. Throughout undergrad, I thought people who had majors that weren't science-related had it easy. I didn't think they had to kill themselves over their studies, like us science majors did. I would look at their homework load and laugh. I didn't take them seriously.
Now that i'm in the non-science category (besides our anatomy and speech science classes), I see how very wrong I was. And I've experienced not being taken seriously for the first time. It made me furious.
I posted a stupid little video on my Facebook of my friends and I drawing and coloring the Lateral Corticospinal Tract. It was actually an assignment we had for our class. We all had to draw the major nerve track and then we voted on who drew the best one. The winner even got a Starbucks gift card.
And guess who won?
This chick.
(Well, technically I got second place, but the professor had two gift cards in case of a tie, and I convinced her to give the extra gift card to second place.)
It was a fun assignment that encoded the Lateral Corticospinal Tract into our brains much better than reading over a power point slide a thousand times.
I posted a short video of us coloring and I got all these comments alluding to the fact that what we were doing was not hard work. It was not "real studying." It wasn't "real science." And we were not to be taken seriously. And I got super offended. I was finally on the other side of what it felt like to not be taken seriously because of your major.
Sometimes I do feel like what I'm learning now is a lot easier than what I was learning previously. But, when I really think about it, this isn't the case at all. Sure I'm not memorizing a thousand useless facts about neurotransmitters and physiological systems, etc, etc. But what makes Speech Pathology so difficult is that you can't memorize a thousand facts and then spit them out on the exam verbatim. You have to actually learn and digest what you've been taught, and then apply it to real-life situations and scenarios. You have to be able to learn from a lecture on childhood apraxia of speech and then know exactly how you would plan a therapy session for a very specific client with this condition. You have to know what tests you would use to assess your client. You have to know what specific speech sounds you should be looking for. You have to know what phonological processes the child might be using. I could go on and on, but what makes Speech Pathology so difficult, and exciting, is that no two clients are going to be exactly alike and it's up to you to know how to individually address each client. Every client is a new challenge.
So no. I don't think I'm "dumbing down" at all. And I also think coloring is a really cool way to learn information. But what this experience has given me is a whole new appreciation for people who are studying subjects that aren't "heavy science." Every discipline has their own challenges.
Speaking of challenges, I'm off to take an exam for my Intro to Research class. Peace and love, y'all.
Until Next Time,
PJ
Congratulations, you've officially made it half-way through the week! If you're having a week like I am, then you are currently experiencing the Moody Midterm Blues as I like to call them. I have a thousand tests and no energy. So, things are going really great. Michigan is also currently getting DUMPED ON (literally.) The forecast calls for snow all day, every day and we'll never see the sun again. (Thus why I tan for a few minutes each week. I need that Vitamin D.)
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| Moody Midterm Blues |
I'm going to be very candid here. Throughout undergrad, I thought people who had majors that weren't science-related had it easy. I didn't think they had to kill themselves over their studies, like us science majors did. I would look at their homework load and laugh. I didn't take them seriously.
Now that i'm in the non-science category (besides our anatomy and speech science classes), I see how very wrong I was. And I've experienced not being taken seriously for the first time. It made me furious.
I posted a stupid little video on my Facebook of my friends and I drawing and coloring the Lateral Corticospinal Tract. It was actually an assignment we had for our class. We all had to draw the major nerve track and then we voted on who drew the best one. The winner even got a Starbucks gift card.
And guess who won?
This chick.
(Well, technically I got second place, but the professor had two gift cards in case of a tie, and I convinced her to give the extra gift card to second place.)
It was a fun assignment that encoded the Lateral Corticospinal Tract into our brains much better than reading over a power point slide a thousand times.
I posted a short video of us coloring and I got all these comments alluding to the fact that what we were doing was not hard work. It was not "real studying." It wasn't "real science." And we were not to be taken seriously. And I got super offended. I was finally on the other side of what it felt like to not be taken seriously because of your major.
Sometimes I do feel like what I'm learning now is a lot easier than what I was learning previously. But, when I really think about it, this isn't the case at all. Sure I'm not memorizing a thousand useless facts about neurotransmitters and physiological systems, etc, etc. But what makes Speech Pathology so difficult is that you can't memorize a thousand facts and then spit them out on the exam verbatim. You have to actually learn and digest what you've been taught, and then apply it to real-life situations and scenarios. You have to be able to learn from a lecture on childhood apraxia of speech and then know exactly how you would plan a therapy session for a very specific client with this condition. You have to know what tests you would use to assess your client. You have to know what specific speech sounds you should be looking for. You have to know what phonological processes the child might be using. I could go on and on, but what makes Speech Pathology so difficult, and exciting, is that no two clients are going to be exactly alike and it's up to you to know how to individually address each client. Every client is a new challenge.
So no. I don't think I'm "dumbing down" at all. And I also think coloring is a really cool way to learn information. But what this experience has given me is a whole new appreciation for people who are studying subjects that aren't "heavy science." Every discipline has their own challenges.
Speaking of challenges, I'm off to take an exam for my Intro to Research class. Peace and love, y'all.
Until Next Time,
PJ
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