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Hi, my name is Alex, and I'm an NBS Psychology major at Haverford. Like a couple other people who already posted, I'm from the west coast and I plan on heading back over there after graduation. I've spent the last couple of years trying to decide whether I'm interested in pursuing a career in research versus medicine, and for the moment at least I'm leaning more towards research. I'm planning on taking the next year or two off and getting some experience as a research assistant, and then applying to graduate schools for neuroscience.

I've always been specifically interested the biological basis of neurological disorders, and how this can be used to understand (and hopefully treat) the symptoms of patients with these conditions. Last summer I worked in a lab at Oregon Health and Sciences University where they were studying the mutation of a specific protein in the neurons of mice bred to have Huntington's disease, which is definitely the kind of research I can imagine following up on later.

Like Amelia said, I think that in neuroscience research fields it is equally important to study animal models and the clinical population. Part of what makes neuroscience so interesting to me is the many different methods by which people can study the brain, and how all of these methods are important in understanding the big picture. Since people in the class come from such a wide range of backgrounds, I think it will be an interesting way to look at neuroscience from a variety of perspectives.