Jasmin Galvan

As I sat in my AP psychology class watching a video, a man on the screen held up a standard piece of printer paper. "This paper represents the human brain," he said. Then, he drew a small square on the paper: "This square represents all that we know about the human brain." It made me wonder: How could we know so little about this organ in our heads that controls our entire lives? At that moment, I decided to expand the square on that piece of paper.

Ten years and two degrees later, I found that my quest was not so simple. I became disenchanted with the minutiae of lab work, but I never fell out of love with neuroscience. Now, I am the person who espouses the brain's wonders, rather than the person who expands that square.