Pre-med students are, by nature, competitive. There is room for debate on whether it is the stressful path that makes us this way, or if it is our personalities that direct us to take the path. Either way, the result is that we spend an awful amount of time comparing ourselves to others (especially other…
UMBC has this interesting little subsection on the student portal called “My Academic Profile,” or “MAP.” This page is supposed to display your progress through completing the General Foundation Requirements (GFRs) the university requires before they will allow you to graduate. The caveat? They never update the darn thing, largely because the inane system requires…
Even before I began my research position, I have frequently heard people of many different areas of focus, science majors included, talk about “curing cancer.” The implication is that somehow, it would be possible to find a treatment or technique that would be able effectively eliminate the phenomenon. This assumption is extraordinarily frustrating to me…