Wednesday 24 October 2012

The first of many

Hello All!

My name is Gaby and I have recently started a Graduate program in Biology at York University. I am creating a blog to chronicle my endeavors, triumphs, and defeats over the next two years of graduate studies, and to keep you posted on my long term goal of becoming an Neurologist specializing in rehabilitation for stroke patients (yes I realize this is a very broad category).

I will start by telling you a bit about myself.

I graduated York University in June of 2012, receiving a Bachelor of Science in Psychology. I initially started at York in the Biomedical program, however in an Intro to Psychology course I completely fell in love with the idea of Cognitive Neuroscience, and thus I switched in to Psychology in my second year of University.

My undergraduate years were very difficult. I had a very hard time adjusting to the university study method, and it took me quite some time to figure out which study method worked best for me. By my 4th year of university I had a clear path, and decided to take some additional neuroscience courses in a 5th year, in order to truly solidify my interest in the field.

I was lucky enough to land a place in The Cognitive Flexibility Lab at York university in my 4th year, which gave me my first taste of research. I was working under a PhD student who was studying musicianship, bilingualism, and their effects on several components of cognition such as attention, inhibition, intelligence, ect. I was conducting upwards of 6 hours of cognitive testing a week on undergraduate students, and I couldn't have been happier. It was so interested to apply the knowledge I had spent hours accumulating over the past few years in an actual research setting. I went on to write my thesis in this lab, and continued conducting research in to my 5th year of studies at York. 

In my 4th year I also took a Neuroscience course which completely blew my mind. I was so inspired by the passion of my professor (Dr. DeSouza) that I absolutely had to work with him. I contacted Dr. DeSouza in the Spring of my 4th year and ended up helping him write a literature review in the Winter of my 5th year (this is a some advice for students looking for research: contact supervisors early!)

In the summer after my 5th year of university I came to a cross road. I was accepted to St. George's Medical School in Grenada, and I was also offered a position to conduct a Masters thesis in Dr. DeSouza's research lab. After careful consideration, I postponed my acceptance to St. George's in the hopes of maybe landing a medical school position in Canada, accepted a Masters position in Dr. DeSouza's lab, and haven't looked back.

In the 7 or so weeks that I have worked in Dr. DeSouza's lab, I have written an abstract, presented at The 2012 McMaster Institute for Music and The Mind NeuroMusic Conference, and am now working on a manuscript to submit in the next week. I have begun working with Brain Voyager QX, started a course on FSL (MRI processing software), and learned very basic computer programming language. 

I am hoping that I will start working on a project proposal in November, and will keep you posted on how that's going. I am looking to study dance therapy in the clinical Parkinson's patient population, and will continue to update with details on this process. 

Gaby







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