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Description of Intellectual Community The
intellectual community at Georgetown is centered around various
settings of interactive learning. The community is built through a
combination of coursework, seminars, journal clubs, and integration of
the disciplines that make up our broad program. Students are
rigourously trained to ask inciteful questions, critically evaluate
their own work and that of others, and to communicate their views and
their research to both the scientific community and the general public.
An important aspect of our intellectual community at Georgetown is for
every member to practice being both a teacher and a student. This not
only promotes the personal and intellectual development of doctoral
candidates, but also allows faculty to gain new and different
perspectives in their fields of research via interactions with
students.
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The Georgetown IPN Community Neurolunch Each
student gives a research talk once a year for the duration of their
thesis research. Pre-thesis students give a ten minute talk after each
of the 3 rotation projects. Forum
that allows student and their mentor to gain perspectives from other
students and faculty on interpretations of data or conclusions,
methodological suggestions, and insight from separate but related
fields of research.Allows students to gain experience preparing and presenting formal hour long talk, as well as fielding questions.Promotes
discussion of research between faculty, students, postdocs, and other
attendees from which more junior students can gain much insight.Journal Club and Seminar Each
week there is a seminar speaker, the first and second year students run
a journal club. Seminar speakers send students a paper that will allow
them to gain an appreciation for the field of specialization and a
foundation for the research the speaker will be presenting during the
seminar. The seminar speaker attends the journal club in the morning
and allows students to understand the research at a deep and meaningful
level. Widely attended seminars are given in the afternoon and thesis students are invited to attend lunch with the speaker. Together
journal club, lunch and seminar give students ample opportunity to not
only understand the science, but also the field at large, critiques of
the literature, and strengths and weaknesses within the speakers own
research.
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A Community From Day One: The First Year Students Didactic Coursework Arrive
in the summer before the first year. During this time they take a
course to address the heterogeneity of the incoming class, thereby
allowing the intensive first year Neuroscience Core course to go into
more depth in less time. Also allows interactions with upper level
students and ease transition to graduate school.Core Neuroscience class involves discussion of primary literature with faculty members who specialize in the field. Non-Didactic Coursework Critical
Readings course in the first semester guides students in learning to
evaluate and primary literature in field. Course feautures papers
written by faculty members at Georgetown or seminar speakers, students
then have sessions with the author to discuss the evaluation of the
literature.Survey
Course in the first semester during which faculty members discuss with
students how they came their present position in academia, stresses the
process of scientific research and careers. Experiential Learning SeminarsJournal ClubResearch rotation with several faculty members with different research interests.In
conjunction with the survey course students choose a faculty mentor who
participated in the survey course and develop a grant proposal with
that individual. Writing involves several sessions to discuss plans
with the faculty member, a review, and feedback provided by the faculty
member.
Overview of First Year Curriculum
This is a link to an overview of the first year curriculum: Core Neuroscience Course and the descriptions of supporting courses.
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Mechanisms to Strengthen Our Community Develop
a informal career chat series in which alumni, postdocs, and senior
students talk with more junior students about the career path they
chose, how they obtained positions after their degree, problems and
struggles, or how they see their career growing in the future. These
sessions would build the bridges across the different years and provide
students with a sense of how they fit into the Neuroscience landscape
in the present and in the future. Continue
to provide new and varied forums for students and faculty to interact
and have either formal or informal intellectual discussions. These
activities can range from rock-climbing and coffee hours, to
problem-solving and discussion based classes. Continue
to hold periodic student and faculty heterogenous focus groups during
which we will address the main questions posed by the CID: what it
means to be a steward of the discipline, how do we teach teachers, what
are habits of mind of the doctoral candidate? These sessions not only
provide the Georgetown CID committee with new perspectives on what our
program values and desires its students to be, but also allows students
and faculty to learn from one another about each others views,
expectations, and goals.
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Reflection from Sunbin Song I
personally feel that I have had close to an ideal experience here at
the Georgetown IPN program in both my dealings with the faculty and the
students. I came to Georgetown through Dr. Joe Neale (who was head of
the biology department) as I had interests in entering the graduate
biology program. Upon conversing with me however, he felt my interests
were much more in line with the IPN program and this is how I
fortuitously entered this interdisciplinary program. My first semester,
I took a course in imaging, and found it fascinating. I pursued this
interest in rotations with Dr. Zeffiro and Dr. Vaidya. I received a
very thorough education in imaging techniques through coursework and
these rotation experiences. At this time, I was also able to write an
NSF predoc application, for which I was mentored extensively by Dr.
Karen Gale. Though I only received an honorable mention, it was still a
very positive experience. As I progressed in my studies, I became more
and more interested in cognitive behavioral studies, which brings me to
my current research work with Dr. Darlene Howard and implicit forms of
learning. Dr. Howard is accessible and supportive without ever being
domineering. She gives advice but lets me pursue my own ideas. She is
also very knowledgeable, having been in the field from the start of the
cognitive revolution. I find my situation very ideal. I have at some
point interacted with most members of the faculty, and I think it is a
great asset to have so many faculty with such varied areas of research
and knowledge bases. This allows my education to be truly
interdisciplinary. Even outside of coursework, if I have a question
about something specific, such as nicotinic receptors or voltage clamp
or K-space or modeling, I can find the faculty member whose area this
is, and talk to an expert. I find I lack time to pursue rather than
opportunity to learn. My fellow classmates as well are highly
motivated, and intellectually driven, and I find my relationships with
them invaluable. Their varied backgrounds make it such that we each
offer unique insights and perspectives. In addition, owing to our
location and to the efforts of our program directors, we always have
amazing speakers from all over come and give journal clubs and seminars
on a regular basis, such that I have met so many great scientists. To
sum, the program is flexible enough to let me evolve, while allowing me
to truly experience learn of all areas and avenues encompassed by
"neuroscience." The numerous faculty, areas of research, and the
variety of backgrounds in the students, all contribute to a diverse
environment that provides many opportunities to learn and develop.
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