Carly Carlos

Reflection Essay
When I first walked into this classroom, I expected the assignments to be like the layout

from the semester before. A layout in which a short assignment was due at the beginning of

every class period, and a large essay at the end of the semester. In terms of content, I expected to

trace various functions and sensations to general areas of the brain. I was mostly correct.

I was admittedly surprised that we had tests, at first, but I liked the idea of a take home

test. Take home tests erase all test anxiety while keeping the benefits of timed exams. The rest of

the assignments were entirely what I expected, with either a journal or discussion log due at the

end of each class period. It made for a nice weekly rhythm of coming to class prepared, even if I

would have liked the discussions to happen at the beginning of class instead of the end.

What I wasn’t expecting was some of the topics that we would go on to cover. Subjects

like the synapse and drug use, I was expecting. Evolution, though, wasn’t. Evolution was a

subject that I thought I was already versed in. I was surprised to know that I wasn’t completely

correct about how evolution functions, nor that I knew how species are classified. When I made

an offhand joke about wishing that we could just evolve out headaches, Doctor Kirby’s response

truly sunk in what evolution is. Simply the case of genes being picky about what genes they

breed with. That example is something I’ll use to explain about the misunderstandings of

evolution to others in my life.

The takeaway that has most impacted me from this course is that we are not just a sum of

our minds or our genes. It was only one class period that we discussed that we are the masters of

our own brain development, but it struck me harder than I expected. With my anxiety, sometimes

the world feels like it happens around me, and that I’m helpless to control myself in response.
This course helped me understand that nothing is concrete about the human mind. Learning

about brain function also took away some of the mystery around the way our minds work. The

mind is simply there to be reshaped and rewired the way we want it to be, and I understand that

because of this course.