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| Meet JHU_Joe - Belmar, NJ; Neuroscience/Psychology Double Major | |
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| Topic Started: Sep 14 2009, 09:49:46 PM (5,151 Views) | |
| JHU_Joe | Sep 14 2009, 09:49:46 PM Post #1 |
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Hey guys! I’m Joe, a Sophomore from Belmar, NJ and I’m a Neuroscience and Psychology Double Major on the Pre-Med track. I came from High Technology High School (the same high school JHU_Brian went to!), a school which was heavily focused on the sciences and engineering, which is why I’m taking so many science courses (it’s also because I don’t really enjoy most humanities courses). I took AP Chemistry and AP Calculus BC my senior year so if you have questions about AP credits at Hopkins I can definitely answer them. --------------------- Why Hopkins? I chose to come to Hopkins because when I was here for the 2008 Pre-College Summer University program I found out that everyone on campus is so nice and friendly and always willing to help you out if you have a question or a problem. I also came because of the presentation I saw during one of the open houses for the Neuroscience department. At that time I wanted to major in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering but after I saw that presentation I started leaning toward Neuroscience. I actually made up my mind when I filled out the form that went along with my deposit to Hopkins and changed my major to Neuroscience. The availability of research here was also a deciding factor. At my high school we were allowed to do research but we couldn’t use human subjects so all my ideas weren’t approved. At Hopkins not only can you do research on campus relating to the medical field, but you can also work with students at the medical school or even work directly with the Hopkins Hospital. --------------------- My Classes Fall 2010:
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AP Calculus BC
My Extracurriculars: Blue Key Society The Blue Key Society is one of the many admissions volunteer groups that I'm a part of, and most people know it as the tour guide group. Blue key is awesome because members get fully trained about all the facts you'd need to know about the university to give a tour. I really love it cause I learned sooooo much more about the university during my training (did you know there are 32 Nobel laureates among the current Hopkins faculty?!), and I absolutely love giving tours. The requirements are that you give a tour every week (there are tours every week day at 11 or 2) and that you give a tour during one of our Saturday sessions or Open Houses. Hopkins Hosting Society HHS is yet another admissions volunteer group that I'm a part of. I knew that I wanted to be a part of HHS immediately after I came to Hopkins during the Spring of 2009 for my overnight program (I was actually hosted by JHU_Keith!). When I joined HHS there was a lot of negative feedback about the program I came too, and it was funny because I still thought it was one of the best experiences of my life. Being a part of HHS allows me to host prospective students during our overnight programs which precede all of our Fall and Spring Open Houses. My advice for students contemplating doing the overnight programs is always: do it! It's something that you'll love and even if you don't end up coming to Hopkins you'll see it as an amazing experience! Hopkins Organization for Pre-Health Education (HOPE) HOPE is an awesome club for anyone who's Pre-Med (or is considering becoming Pre-Med) at Hopkins. Basically every week there's a HOPE meeting and the officers of the club bring in someone who talks to the club about being Pre-Med, or being a doctor/medical student. I've seen everyone from medical students from Hopkins, UMD, etc. to a Gastrointestinal Surgeon from Hopkins to Dr. Verrier, director of the Pre-Professional Programs and Advising Office at Hopkins. The club will also sponsor trips to nearby medical schools so you can talk to the medical students on campus and see what the school is like. My Job(s) in Admissions If you haven't figured it out already, I spend a LOT of time in admissions. One of my jobs in admissions involves me doing the behind-the-scenes work with Hopkins Interactive. Last year, during the Spring semester of my freshman year I was given the opportunity to re-design Hopkins Interactive through SAAB (see below). Most of the time I'm in the office I'm working with JHU_Lauren on small backend changes to make sure everything runs smoothly. Aside from that I'm one of the Student Building Supervisors for the buildings on Decker Quad, meaning whenever there's events on the weekends I'm usually on staff to make sure everything runs smoothly. I absolutely love both of my jobs since they both involve the things that I love (interacting with people/web design/technology in general). Student Admissions Advisory Board SAAB is definitely my favorite admissions volunteer activity. Through SAAB I communicate with prospective students, admitted, students, and even some enrolled students before they get to Hopkins. To put it simply - we answer questions that any prospective/admitted students have for us to make the college application/selection process as easy as possible for you guys. SAAB is also great because its full of a bunch of awesome people who are creative in completely different ways. SAAB is what allows me to write this post for you now, and what gave me my student profile on the admissions website (check it out below!). --------------------- My Dorm Life: Interestingly enough, I've lived in McCoy Hall for both my freshman and sophomore years at Hopkins. While I wasn't very happy with my roommate for the year, the experience was definitely a very unique one. McCoy is awesome because it has air conditioning, and you actually have a thermostat in your room to control the temperature. 2 other guys were in my suite as well and they were actually on the men's water polo team. That was really awesome since I got to learn what water polo actually is, and how athletes schedules work. I loved McCoy since its so close to St. Paul St. which has a lot of different dining options if you don't want to make the walk to the FFC. This year its even better cause I eat at Nolans most of the time which is just half a block away in Charles Commons. Check out my CRIBS videos to see what my dorm rooms looked like: Freshman Year - McCoy T01A --------------------- Follow me: Read my freshman year blog - http://blogs.hopkins-interactive.com/2013/author/joe/ Follow me on Twitter - http://twitter.com/JHU_Joe Read my student profile - http://apply.jhu.edu/studentlife/meet_joen.html --------------------- So that’s about it for me. If you have any questions post them up here. One of the things I always said during my presentations in high school was no question is a stupid question. You can ask me anything, even if it doesn’t necessarily relate to Hopkins. |
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- Joe N. Class of 2013 Neuroscience and Psychology Double Major Ask Me a Question or Follow Me on Twitter! “Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.” – Albert Einstein | |
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| acejhu3 | Mar 2 2010, 05:51:36 PM Post #2 |
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Hey Joe.  My name's Ashley, I'm a prospective JHU student who is maybeee going to be pre-med. I'm interested in a number of things, not excluding the humanites, but lately I've become fascinated with the human body, and I have this desire to become a doctor that I just can't shake.Anyway, here's my question to you: As a pre-med student yourself, how do you stay motivated? To me, the prospect of four years of college, four years of med school, and then a residency before you are "officially", all the way, on your own, a doctor, is just very daunting to me. I'm not opposed to hard work, don't get me wrong. It's just a long path and I'm not sure how I'll make it. What motivates you every day to become a doctor? How do you stay focused? How do you keep your, say, 12 year journey in perspective for the rest of your life? It's a skill I need to learn. Haha. Thanks for any advice you can give. Ashley |
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| JHU_Joe | Mar 2 2010, 08:49:00 PM Post #3 |
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Hey Ashley! I don't think I've ever been asked a better question, and I'm so happy that I get to answer this for you. First let me say that it's great that you're interested in the Humanities AND you want to be a doctor, that's something that you'll find will help you a lot along the way. Let me start by saying that I've known that I wanted to be a doctor since I was in 3rd grade, and while I changed my mind about how I was going to get to my goal, I always knew that I wanted to do this. So since I decided that then and I figured out how long it was going to take when I was in 7th grade (coincidentally that was the same grade I decided that I wanted to deal with cancer). Right now I'm interested in Neurosurgery and if everything works out I have 18 years from now until I'm a fully certified Attending Neurosurgeon. It seems like a lot to deal with right away but I definitely know where you're coming from. I'm going to talk about the general reasons why I became a doctor, but if you want to hear my more personal reasons I'd be happy to let you know about them as well. Throughout my entire life I've always been interested in one thing, even before medicine, and that was helping people. Up until 3rd grade I couldn't really figure out how I wanted to go about helping people, but then I learned about sickness and disease. The thing that really motivates me to become a doctor is that doctors can help people in ways that no other profession can, doctors can literally give someone their life back when they seem to have no hope. But more importantly, doctors can sometimes fix congenital diseases (disease people are born with). So since I'm so interested in cancer let's take that as an example. Cancer can be something you're born with, or something that you randomly develop throughout your life. Cancer is a "simple" genetic mutation that causes your cells to not specialize properly, so all the cells do is divide. Obviously cancer ruins people's lives, and most times there's absolutely nothing that you can do about it. But my question is: what did people do to deserve this? Absolutely nothing. People develop cancer for no reason at all, and in my mind NO ONE deserves to have that happen to them, the same goes for pretty much any fatal disease. As a doctor I'd be able to literally save people's lives from a fate that they don't deserve. That's what motivates me every time I struggle with schoolwork, an as corny as it may seem, the end will definitely justify the means. I won't really mind working long hours and being a resident for such a long time because I have the opportunity to help people in ways that no one else can. Like I said let me know if you want me to go into the more personal reasons/specific examples, but that's the general reason why I want to be a doctor. Most people think that it's great that doctors make a lot of money, but to tell you the truth that's not something that I worry about at this point, it's all about helping people for me and it's always been. My advice to you would be to start getting experience in the medical field, I've worked in a hospital for probably 8 months and just seeing what happens in the hospital has helped me conclude that I really want to be a doctor. I like to say that my medical experience so far has been like a collage of defining moments, things that I wouldn't have been exposed to if I hadn't gotten involved. Once you have experiences like that and you know for a fact that you want to be a doctor, it doesn't become about the waiting, if that makes sense. |
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- Joe N. Class of 2013 Neuroscience and Psychology Double Major Ask Me a Question or Follow Me on Twitter! “Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.” – Albert Einstein | |
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| acejhu3 | Mar 3 2010, 09:41:15 PM Post #4 |
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Joe, thank you so much for taking the time to write me such a great response! I think it's awesome that this is the best question you've ever been asked, haha! Also, I'm glad you think it will be beneficial to balance the humanities and sciences, because I was afraid I wouldn't get my fill of humanities. I know exactly where you're coming from as far as your main motivation. I've changed my mind several times since I was little about what I wanted to be when I got older, but I never even considered the money I would make or the time involved; I just wanted to help people. So I'm glad to hear that, for you, that alone was a huge help in keeping you focused. I was also touched by what you said about cancer patients (and any other person with a random disease, for that matter). I completely understood what you were saying and yet, I had never thought of it that way before. That really helped me. I definitely agree that I need to gain experience in the medical field! I'm planning on volunteering at a local hospital this summer, and I'm very excited about that. Anyway, thank you very much, you've definitely re-inspired me and helped quite a bit.
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| ialjabb1 | Jul 1 2010, 07:55:54 AM Post #5 |
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Hi I'm planning on being a neuroscience major and I just registered for my classes. Here's what I have as of today: Intro to Cognitive Neuropsychology Calculus I for Biological Sciences Introductory Chemistry I Introductory Chem Lab I Freshman Seminar: The Laboratory Although I'm intersted in the seminar, my first schedule choice had Intro to Expository Writing instead of the Seminar (I'm first on the wailtist for intro to expository writing). Being a neuroscience major yourself, what do you think about these courses for an incoming freshman getting acclimated to Hopkins? Thanks! |
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| JHU_Joe | Jul 1 2010, 05:25:23 PM Post #6 |
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Hey ialjabb1, Based upon the classes you selected, it looks like you've got a great first semester ahead of you! If you do get off the waitlist for Expos I would still suggest that you stay in your Freshman Seminar, since its very hard to get into the seminars and you can really take Expos anytime. The only other change I would suggest (and this is based upon my personal experience, don't feel obligated to take my suggestion) is that you try and fit in An Introduction to Neuroscience in your schedule. Its great for all Neuroscience majors and it really shows you what Neuroscience is all about. Since you already have a full schedule I would say if you feel obligated to take it you switch it out with Cog Neuropsych. You'll find that Cog Neuropsych is more of a Cognitive Science class with a few Neuroscience sections. Like I said its completely up to you but if you have any other questions feel free to post back here. |
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- Joe N. Class of 2013 Neuroscience and Psychology Double Major Ask Me a Question or Follow Me on Twitter! “Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.” – Albert Einstein | |
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| akantamneni | Aug 16 2010, 11:51:23 AM Post #7 |
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Hi Joe, My name's Abhishek, and I'm a senior getting ready to apply to schools, and I've always been interested in Johns Hopkins. I really want to major in neuroscience as well, and it's good to hear that there are so many opportunities related to it. My question was about the things you can do outside of class that relate to neuroscience. Are there labs and studies that you can work in and if so, is it easy to get in? I've done some work in a lab before, and I would love to continue during college. Any sort of information about it would be appreciated, and thanks in advance. Thanks Abhishek |
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| JHU_Joe | Aug 17 2010, 07:02:28 PM Post #8 |
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Hey Abhishek, Great question! There are plenty of things that you can do outside of the class that relate to neuroscience. One of the greatest things about Hopkins (which is incidentally one of the reasons that I ended up coming here) is the connection that we have between the undergraduate institution and the medical campus. As an undergraduate student you have the ability to visit and even work in all of the Neuroscience labs on the medical campus, even as a freshman! The best part about it is all you have to do is email the Graduate Student or Professor who runs the lab and let them know that you want to be a part of it. If they have room for another student in their lab they'll invite you to the medical campus for an interview, and if they like you they'll begin your training as soon as possible! As I said you can email professors if you're interested in their labs even if you're a freshman. What's great is that you can actually do research for credit, and the only extra thing you have to do is a short paper at the end of the semester documenting what you've done and how it relates to Neuroscience. The credit is given on a pass/fail basis and you have to write a really bad paper to be denied credit. If you'd like more information on how to find a lab (and its really as easy as I've described), check out the "How to Find a Research Lab" page on the Neuroscience Department's website at: http://krieger.jhu.edu/neuroscience/resour...find_a_lab.html. Let me know if you have any other questions! |
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- Joe N. Class of 2013 Neuroscience and Psychology Double Major Ask Me a Question or Follow Me on Twitter! “Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.” – Albert Einstein | |
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| suhstacy | Sep 6 2010, 10:24:28 PM Post #9 |
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Hi Joe! I was reading your profile information because I want to be a neuroscience major, too and I saw that you are involved in Hopkins Organization for Pre-Health Education (HOPE) program. Can you explain to me what it is and what you do there? It sounds like it has a lot to do with medical or health related issues. Thanks! |
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| JHU_Joe | Sep 8 2010, 11:10:56 PM Post #10 |
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Hey suhstacy! HOPE is a pretty cool club that a bunch of my friends who were pre-med joined with me. The club has different panels or guests each week who speak to the memberse about what it means to be a doctor or what it means to be pre-med. Some of the panels I saw included the pre-professional advising staff, an oncological gastrointestinal surgeon from Hopkins Med, so on and so forth. Furthermore the club offers unique opportunities to participate in volunteer projects such as working at science fairs (one of the fairs the members could go to had pediatric neurosurgeon Ben Carson from Hopkins speaking there), or working volunteer shifts at the ER on the med campus. From what I've heard the ER volunteer shifts are awesome because the doctors allow you to do a lot more than they let most volunteers do. Finally one of the other opportunities members of HOPE have is the ability to visit med schools in and around the Hopkins campus. During the first few months of my membership I actually had the opportunity to visit UPenn's School of Medicine, unfortunately it ended up being cancelled because the transportation fell through. I hope I've given you enough information about the club, and I definitely think that it is beneficial for all pre-med majors to join! Let me know if you have any other questions! |
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- Joe N. Class of 2013 Neuroscience and Psychology Double Major Ask Me a Question or Follow Me on Twitter! “Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.” – Albert Einstein | |
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| enkay19 | Oct 10 2010, 03:19:02 PM Post #11 |
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Hi JHU Joe! I am a junior in high school, and I am extremely interested in Johns Hopkins University, and I think it would be the perfect place for me! So far, everything I have read/ heard about the university, through the admissions seminars as well as student threads, seems perfect and I get really excited thinking about a possible future at JHU! There is one thing however, that has slightly frightened me: some students say that grades are very low at Johns Hopkins because professors are make it very difficult to get good grades, and sometimes even put the class on a C- curve... Oh! And I am (as of now) interested in the SAME majors as you (neuroscience/ psych!) so would you say... This is true? Especially for the competitive science classes, like ones you've taken? How hard is it, in reality, to get good grades (an A or a B grade) and does this harder grading system (aka grade DE-flation) give you more of an edge when applying to graduate programs, or a disadvantage? THANK YOU SO MUCH in advance !!!!! This helps immensely!
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| JHU_Joe | Oct 11 2010, 07:42:30 PM Post #12 |
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Hey enkay19! That's great that you're interested in JHU even as junior, trust me in saying that it will make the college application process much similar. It's also really great that you've heard a lot about the university from all the resources we have to offer. So the idea that grade deflation exists at Hopkins is one of those myths that exists about Hopkins that isn't true at all. Before I give you my answer from my experience let me point out that an entire thread exists about this question in the "Fact or Fiction" subform of the "Academics: The Insiders Perspective" category at: http://z14.invisionfree.com/Hopkins_Forums...p?showtopic=342. First let me start off my saying that in all the classes I've been in that have had a curve, the curve has always been to at least a B, and in some classes there isn't really a curve cause it's not necessary. One example of this in my Intro to Psychology class. In this class there were 4 exams, each 40 multiple choice questions, and there was no curving, if you had above 360 total for all your exams at the end of the class you had an A, above a 320 you had a B, etc. The exams in this class weren't that hard at all and its a completely fair system. In the Neuroscience classes I've taken there's been an extremely interesting curve that works out very well. So let's say there's 100 people in my Neuroscience class. At the end of the semester the students with the 10 highest scores (10% of the people enrolled in the class) are given an A+. After that the 11th highest score becomes scaled to 100, and after that all you have to have is 90% of that grade to get an A. This is in my opinion the best way to grade a class because it takes into account that even the top people in the class won't have perfect scores on all the exams. I'll close by saying that the normal average GPA for students entering medical/graduate school is something like 3.5 to 3.7, but at Hopkins the middle 50% is closer to 3.3 to 3.6. This is simply because the graduate schools know that Hopkins has a rigorous curriculum, and that a GPA of 3.3 at Hopkins could be equivalent to a 3.7 at a lot of other schools. If you'd like more information about applying to graduate school from Hopkins, check out the website for our Office of Pre-Professional Programs and Advising at: http://web.jhu.edu/prepro/. Hopefully that answers all of questions, if I confused you in some way or I missed something let me know and I'll fix that for you. |
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- Joe N. Class of 2013 Neuroscience and Psychology Double Major Ask Me a Question or Follow Me on Twitter! “Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.” – Albert Einstein | |
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| enkay19 | Oct 14 2010, 12:02:08 AM Post #13 |
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Oh my! Your extensive answer has cleared up so much for me, and now I know that that "low grades" are just one of those myths! I guess one would get what they work for, and that seems to be a very fair and rewarding system! Thanks again for everything!!! It was all clear, and the examples helped the best; this has made me much more Hopkins-crazy (if that was possible)  Take care and good luck with all your classes |
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| Gem | Dec 14 2010, 08:40:34 PM Post #14 |
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Hello Joe, I found your double majors interesting so I wanted to ask you some questions. How did you decide on those specific majors? Can you double major on most majors offered at Hopkins? Lastly, how are you liking your courses? Thanks for your time. Just know that I have many more questions for you. ><; Thanks again, Gem  P.S. Although I'm not a New Jersian anymore, I'm still proud of you for representing NJ. x] |
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| JHU_Joe | Dec 22 2010, 04:53:39 PM Post #15 |
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Hey Gem! Those are really good questions, so brace yourself for some in-depth responses. I actually came across the Neuroscience major almost by accident. When I was visiting Hopkins as a junior my parents wanted to check out the department because it sounded interesting. Needless to say I was more than impressed by the presentation which was given by Dr. Hendry, Dr. Gorman, and Dr. Fortune. There was something about the way that they spoke and the subject matter that they spoke about that immediately sparked my interest in the topic. Neuroscience was always in the back of my mind as something that I wanted to study (ChemBE took priority for most of the time though), but when it finally came time for me to sign the deposit form I found myself looking at the required classes and the descriptions for ChemBE majors vs. Neuroscience majors, and the Neuroscience classes seemed far more interesting to me. That was actually the first time I decided that I was going to major in Neuroscience, right when I was mailing the deposit form. I also discovered Psychology by accident. As a high school student I didn't have much exposure to Psychology, and I wanted to take some courses in college. Once I dropped Calc III because it didn't seem interesting to me and it wasn't required for my major, I took up Intro Psych. The material in the class was also so interesting, and it was something that I could see myself studying in college as well. Initially I planned on minoring in Psychology, but during a meeting with my Academic Advisor she suggested that I pursue a double major instead because I'd only end up taking a few more courses. What's great about these majors is that the distribution requirements cancel each other out since Psychology is a Social Science and Neuroscience is a Natural Science, and the upper level courses count for both majors. Generally speaking it is possible to double major on most majors that are offered at Hopkins, just keep in mind that certain departments won't allow you to double major with departments with similar programs (most of these can be found on the sites for all the departments). Also keep in mind that you'll have to complete the course load for both majors, which could end up being very time consuming. I'd suggest against double majoring in programs that are of the same type (like two Natural Sciences, or two Engineering majors) as they'll most likely have very few overlapping upper level courses. Lastly, I absolutely love all of my courses. Its so different from high school because you cover so much more material in a year, and I find all of it genuinely interesting, so I don't have that hard of a time when I'm studying for my classes. It's actually sort of fun because I'm learning stuff that I can see applications for in my life, especially with the career plans I have in mind. Let me know if you have any other questions, I'd be happy to answer them! Just be aware that my responses might be delayed as I'm on break =). Don't worry though, if you ask me a question I'll be sure to answer it as best I can. And as I've told other people that ask me questions, if I confuse you in any way or you want me to elaborate on my answers just let me know! |
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- Joe N. Class of 2013 Neuroscience and Psychology Double Major Ask Me a Question or Follow Me on Twitter! “Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.” – Albert Einstein | |
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