12/04/16 || You Can Never Have Too Many Notebooks.

Scholarships!

College in the United States is absurdly expensive, but luckily, free money is being thrown at students left and right. Applying for scholarships can be tedious, but working for decades to pay off student loans is far more difficult. Take the time to apply for every scholarship you are eligible for and your future self will thank you!

Scholarship Databases - Databases can be a fantastic resource for finding scholarships. You put in your information and the websites will automatically show you all of the scholarships you are eligible for. Most of these sites also automatically register you for their own scholarships when you sign up (see: no-essay scholarships.)

Unigo

scholarships.com

Niche

Cappex

SALT

Fastweb

Chegg

Peterson’s

School Soup

BigFuture

Big Scholarships - These scholarships tend to involve a longer application process, and you can bet that lots of students will be trying their luck for the high prizes. If you are lucky enough to win even one of these prizes, all of that hard work will instantly pay off.

Gates Millenium (amount varies)

Coca-Cola Scholarship ($20,000)

AXA Scholarship ($10,000)

Dell Scholars Application ($20,000)

Ron Brown Scholarship Program ($40,000)

Burger King Scholars ($50,000)

Questbridge ($200,000)

Voice of Democracy Scholarship ($30,000)

Hertz Foundation Graduate Scholarship ($38,000)

David Letterman Scholarship ($10,000)

Horatio Alger Association Scholarships ($10,000 - $1,000)

Unigo $10K Scholarship ($10,000)

No-essay Scholarships - For most of these scholarships, the only requirement is that you sign up for their website. If you are already hunting for scholarships and would be using these sites anyway, then these scholarships are a no-brainer.

Chegg Monthly Scholarship ($1,000)

Niche $2,000 “No Essay” College Scholarship ($2,000)

Cappex Easy College Money Scholarship ($1,000)

College Week Live ($1,000)

U.S. Bank Scholarship ($1,000)

Scholarship Zone ($10,000)

Odd Scholarships - Calling all tall people and duck callers! These scholarships may seem a little bit out there, but you can win money for school by honing in on some of your more eccentric talents and interests.

Wholesale Halloween Costume Scholarship ($500)

Zolp Scholarship (You must be Catholic, your last name must be Zolp) (amount varies)

Custom Jewelry Scholarship ($1,000)

Tall People Scholarship ($1,000)

Chick and Sophie Major Memorial Duck Calling Contest ($2,000)

Stuck at Prom Duck Tape Scholarship Contest ($3,000)

Scholarship for Vegetarians ($10,000)

This barely even scratches the surface of the scholarships that are out there for students, so be sure to take some time and apply for every scholarship that you qualify for. Good luck, and happy hunting!

starting my journal for next year!

Notes taken during Physics lessons! Exams end in 5 days and I can’t wait!!!!!!

4 Legal Ways To Get Free Textbooks.

1. Open Culture:  Not a large a selection, but high quality texts. If you just want to skim a book to brush up on a course you took in ninth grade, download one of these. I have yet to be disappointed.

2. Book Boon: Provides free college-level textbooks in a PDF format. Probably the widest range of subjects on the web. The site is also pretty.

3. Flat World Knowledge: The worlds largest publisher of free and open college textbooks. Humanitie texts are particularly difficult to come by, this site has a great selection in all disciplines.

4. Textbook Revolution:  Some of the books are PDF files, others are viewable online as e-books, or some are simply web sites containing course or multimedia content.

5. Library Pirate: I’ve always had an addiction to torrent based pirating. When this site opened a few months ago, I went a little overboard. After dropping two hundred on a paperback spanish textbook, I downloaded the ebook version illegally. I also got a great Psyc text i’m obsessed with.  It will be interesting to see how this site grows- they already have a great selection. 

What made you get into bioethics? Like, what about it captivated you enough to go to school for it?

As with all the great passions of my life–theology, every boy I’ve ever liked–it started with an argument.

The summer before my junior year of high school, I went to a summer camp where we stayed on a college campus and took mini “classes” and generally nerded it up for three weeks. You got to choose your “major”–the main class you took–but you were also assigned a random “minor”. The minors were unusual, like Hebrew or pottery or the history of war.

I was put in Bioethics. 

My teacher was a professor of philosophy from a nearby university, and I fucking loved every second of it. I loved the articles we read, I loved watching Gattaca and talking about genetic manipulation and individuality, I loved the professor and the insights he brought up (one day class was totally derailed by the question of why we refer to the soul as “my/mine/ours” what’s doing the owning there? that blew my little high school mind.)

Most of all, I loved the arguing, I loved the wordy back and forth of it–I’d been reading Stoic philosophy in Latin and ethics is endemic to theology classes, so I had a vague grasp of the territory. The rest was being quick on your feet, taking in information and then twisting it, trying to articulate vast things, poking holes in someone’s argument and defending your own. Looking back, I am dead certain I was insufferable–there were whole classes that I spent just arguing with the professor, while my classmates looked on. But I was too excited by this new toy not to…be an asshole about it, basically.

The social dimension of science has always fascinated me–I can still remember our physics teacher sitting down and explaining the reason that Aristotelian physics hung around so long was because it bolstered Catholic theology, my AP Bio teacher talking about how Rosalind Franklin’s work was ignored. So when I was reading through UChicago’s course guide, and I saw their description of the major, I was sold.

And honestly, it was a perfect choice for me. “Bioethics” is a very simplistic way to put what I studied; the major itself was the history, philosophy, and social studies of science. So it was a chance for me to just glut myself on knowledge–one quarter I would hurry from my Cancer Biology class on the science quad to Magic & Medicine in Ancient Europe in the history building. I went to lectures about the social factors influencing kidney donation, and international medicine. I wrote my BA thesis on how bioethics has failed to respond to the changing way medicine is done.

There are things I regret about my undergrad career, but my major was absolutely not one of them.

I don’t know about you guys but I am psyched to get an education, woo. This year is a hella important year for me because if I don’t finish this school year with five As then I am a dead man walking, you get me? So this started off as a collection to help me get those fabulous As but I thought, what the hell? I’ll share this perfection with everyone else because sharing is caring. Anyways, down to the nitty gritty

We actually have around 20 senses (depending on how you count) but this infographic outlines the 5 main ones; hearing, seeing, tasting, smelling, and touch. More like this on To Be A Genius.

Anti-Indigenous things to quit saying/doing:

- Stop saying “off the reservation”. It’s a reference to the pass system that was in place restricting Native people from leaving without permission.

- Stop making “1/16th”, “great-great grandmother”, etc. jokes. All of these reference blood quantum, a system designed to “breed out the Natives”. Indigeneity isn’t defined by a percentage, fraction, etc. Quit policing Indigenous identities and quit joking about genocidal tactics.

- Stop calling things your “spirit animal”. You don’t have one. Only Indigenous people from specific nations have spirit animals.

- Stop making dreamcatchers. They are sacred Anishinaabe culture and are not cute trinkets, crafts, etc. Buy them from Anishinaabe artists.

- Stop buying those little cloth “teepees” for your kids/pets/whatever. Also stuff with tipi prints

- Quit referring to your “tribe”. Enough with the “bride tribe” nonsense and all the rest. Stop trivializing tribal affiliations.

- Don’t wear “war paint”. Don’t put a feather in your hair. Don’t dress up as Native people or characters.

- Stop referring to your meetings/side discussions/parties as a “pow wow”.

- Stop supporting sports teams that use racist terms and logos and caricatures of Indigenous people.

- Stop using white sage. It is sacred and overharvested. There are lots of types of sage you can use instead.

- Stop “smudging”. Smoke cleansing exists in many forms in many cultures, use that. Non-Natives can’t smudge.

- Stop tokenizing your Native friends, classmates, in-laws, half siblings, etc.

Please add more!

HOW TO WRITE A HIGH-GRADE RESEARCH PAPER

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The first time I had to write a research paper for university was one of the most stressful experiences I’d ever had - it was so different to anything I’d ever done before and caused me so much anxiety! It turned out that I’m pretty damn good at writing research reports and I’m now looking to pursue a career in psychological research. 

I have never received less than a First (or 4.0 GPA for you American studiers) in my research papers so I thought I’d share my top tips on how to write a kick-ass, high-grade research paper.

*disclaimer: I am a psychology student, my tips are based on my personal experience of writing up psychological research (quantitative and qualitative); therefore, they may require some adaptation in order to be applied to your field of study/research*

These tips will be split up into the different sections a research paper should consist of: abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion, references and formatting.

ABSTRACT

The aim of an abstract is to summarise your whole paper - it should be concise, include key-words, highlight the key points of your paper and be written last.

When I say concise, I mean concise! The abstract is what other students and researchers will read in order to decide whether your research is relevant their own work and essentially determines whether or not they’ll read on - they want to know the key details and don’t want to be overwhelmed with information.

I always aim to keep my abstracts under 250 words. I set myself this limit to stop myself waffling and dwelling on unimportant points, it helps me to be really selective of what I include and ensures I’m gripping the reader from the start.

Your abstract should discuss the research rationale, the methods and designs used, your results and the general conclusion(s) drawn. One or two sentences on each of these topics is enough.

Make sure you’re using key-words throughout your abstract as this will also help the reader decide whether your work is relevant to theirs. You can make key-words super obvious by highlighting them in a key at the bottom of your abstract (see below) or just used jargon consistently. Using key-words is also important if you’re looking to get your work published, these words will help people find your work using search engines.

Finally, write your abstract last! An abstract is a summary of your whole research paper which makes it practically impossible to write well first. After writing the rest of your paper, you will know your research inside and out and already have an idea of what key things you need to highlight in your abstract.

INTRODUCTION

For me, the introduction section is always the most intimidating to write because it’s like painting on a blank canvas - massively daunting and leaving you terrified to make a mistake!

The aim of an introduction is to provide the rationale for your research and justify why your work is essential in the field. In general, your introduction should start very broad and narrow down until you arrive at the niche that is your research question or hypothesis.

To start, you need to provide the reader with some background information and context. You should discuss the general principle of your paper and include some key pieces of research (or theoretical frameworks if relevant) that helps your reader get up to speed with the research field and where understanding currently lies. This section can be pretty lengthy, especially in psychological research, so make sure all of the information you’re including is vital as it can be pretty easy to get carried away.

This background should lead you onto the rationale. If you’ve never written a research paper before, the rationale is essentially the reason behind your own research. This could be building on previous findings so our understanding remains up to date, it could be picking up on weaknesses of other research and rectifying these issues or it could be delving into an unexplored aspect of the field! You should clearly state your rationale and this helps lead into the next section.

You should end your introduction by briefly discussing your current research. You need to state your research question or hypothesis, how you plan on investigating the question/hypothesis, the sample you plan on using and the analysis you plan to carry out. You should also mention any limitations you anticipate to crop up so you can address these in your discussion.

In psychology, references are huge in research introductions so it is important to use an accurate (and modern as possible) reference for each statement you are making. You can then use these same references in your discussion to show where your research fits into the current understanding of the topic!

METHODS

Your methods section should make use of subheadings and tables where necessary and should be written in past tense. This can make the (potentially) lengthy section easier to navigate for the reader. I usually use the following headings: participants, materials, design, procedure.

The participants section should describe the sample that took part in your research. Age, gender, nationality and other relevant demographic information should be provided as well as the sampling technique. Personally, I use a table (see below) alongside my continuous prose as an alternative way of viewing my sample population. Please note, if you’re using a table make sure it adheres to your university guidelines.

The materials section of your methods should include any equipment, resources (i.e. images, books, diagrams) or any other materials used in your data collection. You should also reference the program that helped you conduct your analysis. For example, if you are writing a qualitative research paper, you may want to include Microsoft Word in your materials if you use the program to transcribe interviews.

You should then describe the design used in your research. All variables should be identified in this paragraph, if relevant. You should also discuss whether your research is within-groups or between-groups, again only if relevant.

Last is your procedure section - the most important one! You must write this section with enough detail so that anybody could pick it up, read it and conduct the same experiment with ease. You should describe what participants were required to do, how data was collected and it should be written in chronological order! While it’s important to provide enough information, try not to overwhelm the reader with lengthy sentences and unnecessary information.

RESULTS

Your results section’s sole purpose is to provide the reader with the data from your study. It should be the second shortest section (abstract being first) in your research paper and should stick to the relevant guidelines in regards to reporting figures, tables and diagrams. Your goal is to relay results in the most objective and concise way possible.

Your results section serves to act as evidence for the claims you’ll go on to make during your discussion but you must not be biased in the results you report. You should report enough data to sufficiently justify your conclusions but must also include data that doesn’t support your original hypothesis or research question. 

Reporting data is most easily done through tables and figures as they’re easy to look at and select relevant information. If you’re using tables and figures you should always make sure you’re stating effect sizes and p values and to a consistent decimal place. Illustrative tables and figures should always be followed by supporting summary text consisting of a couple of sentences relaying the key statistical findings in continuous prose.

DISCUSSION

The discussion section should take the opposite approach to your introduction! You should start discussing your own research and broaden the discussion until you’re talking about the general research field.

You should start by stating the major findings of your study and relating them back to your hypothesis or research questions. You must must must explicitly state whether you reject or accept your experimental hypothesis, if you have one. After stating your key findings you should explain the meaning, why they’re important and where they fit into the existing literature. It’s here that you should bring back the research you discussed in your introduction, you should relate your findings to the current understanding and state the new insight your research provides.

You should then state the clinical relevance of your research. Think about how your findings could be applied to real-life situations and discuss one or two practical applications.

After this, discuss the limitations of your research. Limitations could include sample size and general sample population and how this effects generalisability of findings, it could include methodological problems or research bias! These limitations will allow you to discuss how further research should be conducted. Suggest ways in which these limitations could be rectified in future research and also discuss the implications this could have on findings and conclusions drawn.

Finally, you need to give the reader a take-home message. A sentence or two to justify (again) the need for your research and how it contributes to current understanding in the field. This is the last thing your audience will read so make it punchy!

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That’s it folks! My tips for writing a kick-ass, high-grade research paper based on my personal experience. If you have any questions regarding things I’ve missed or didn’t provide enough detail of, then please just send me an ask!

Also, if any of you would like to read any of my past research papers I would be more than happy to provide you with them :-))

10 things to get before your first semester of medical school

I’m almost done with my first semester of medical school!

Thank all the stars.

In celebration that I have 2 weeks left, I’ve come up with a list of the things I should have had the moment I started to make my life easier. These are nothing more than suggestions to anyone who will be starting soon. Remember, it’s a personal experience, and everyone’s will be different, and it’s what you make of it. I just like sharing.   

And if you’ve got something to add, please do!

1. Netter’s Anatomy Flash Cards

If you even have the thought that you might want them, just get the stupid cards. These suckers have saved me anytime I have been stuck somewhere and I need to study. You can grab them between breaks, read them on the couch, make games out of them. Anatomy really doesn’t vary in terms of material and everyone takes anatomy. 

2. A bunch of those 70 cent notebooks 

But Sass, you say, I want the nice notebooks! And you get those lovely book bound notebooks with the heavy paper (if it so pleases you). BUT you’re going to need scratch paper, And yes you  can use regular ruled paper or computer paper. BUT if you aren’t a fan of “holy crap I wrote something important on that paper” situations or if you’re a compulsive hoarder (we all become hoarders in med school) it’s just so much easier to have these cheap-os. 

3. Some kind of calender 

I don’t care how you do it, but do something. Use Google Calender, get a planner, put sticky notes everywhere, get a whiteboard calender DO SOMETHING. You may not realize it yet, but medical school says “hey we need every inch of brain power and long term memory you have” so believe me when I say, you will forget so many things if you don’t put it somewhere. 

4. A good pillow 

Despite how it might seem, sleep is a necessity, not a luxury. So why make yourself have a harder time getting to sleep? Quick answer, don’t. Do what you can to make it easy for you get whatever amount of sleep you’re getting (every second counts). A great pillow is the simplest solution, though comfy bed sheets or a fluffy comforter can help too.   

5. Reliable internet 

First of all, the majority of medical education now functions via the computer, you need internet. Secondly, I know we are living off “future money”, but current you will be a much happier person if your internet doesn’t constantly cut out. Even if you study at school all the time and are never home are you gonna lie and say you don’t lose your mind watching netflix (or any variation) because the video won’t buffer? If nothing else, invest in this. 

6. An arsenal of writing utensils 

You will need good pens that make you happy (you need happy). You will also need pens you know you will not miss you never see them again. You will need board markers because whiteboard learning is a gift. You will need highlighters because neon yellow is the calling card for need to know. You will need pencils because we live in a world of mistakes.

7. Vitamin D 

*Disclaimer I am not a doctor, this is just a suggestion, ask a medical professional to know if you should take any supplements* Do you wanna know a vitamin most people are deficient in? Vitamin D. Do you know where we get Vitamin D from? The sun. Do you want to know how often first year medical students go outside? If you guessed “only when they remember” then you are correct. Some of us are lucky enough to be outside. The rest of us need a bit of help. 

8. Snacks

Not just any snack. A good, reliable, filling and hopefully healthy snack. Med students come in three varieties when it comes to eating. Eats like a normal human, eats out a lot, and forgets to eat. I fall into the last category because I just don’t have food with me. So find a snack that makes you fall into the first category . 

9. A phone that works and can access wifi

At the minimum, you need this. You need a way to stay in contact with the people who matter to you, to be notified when you’re in the library and their about to be a quiz, when you’re still new to this hole med school thing and you get your first text from a new friend. You’ll want to pull up grades on the fly, or see that they changed a class in your email. You just can’t avoid it, you need a phone that gets you connected. 

10. Confidence in yourself 

Let me tell you something about medical school. It’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done so far. It’s endless hours of learning words you didn’t even know existed, things you may never see again, and pictures you can’t even grasp. It’s a world full frustration and of feeling like you aren’t good enough, or as good as everyone else. But you are. You made it this far and you can do this. So if there is one thing you do get, let it be this. Let yourself believe you can do it, and that you have the ability to be successful.