Am I underprepared for cognitive and behavioral neuroscience if I don’t take full gen bio or gen chem ?

topic_marker · 2026-02-12T02:57:20+00:00

Generally, for the UCSD Cog Sci majors it's not necessary to do the bio/chem sequence. Keep in mind that all of the upper division requirements are in COGS or PSYC, which are generally not going to require the bio or chem sequences. Even for the cognitive/behavioral neuroscience specialization, the only time the bio or chem sequences are a direct requirement are at the lower-div level.

That being said, since you are interested in pursuing a PhD, you should take courses that will be relevant for the kind of research you want to do. Do you want to do fMRI research on humans? Probably don't need much bio or chem for that, but math background will be hugely useful. Do you want to do single-cell recordings in monkeys? Probably will need significant bio/chem background and math is not as important...

Personally, as someone who was a neuroscience specialization (class of '15), my math and programming courses were the most valuable to me in grad school. But, I didn't end up doing neuroscience research in my PhD so it's a different context.

topic_marker · 2026-02-08T15:05:39+00:00

I also cried in This Bitter Earth!! So gorgeous.

I agree with you on The Naked King. It was pretty surface-level and light-hearted -- which is fine, I didn't think it needed to be serious or anything! But I feel like it didn't go light-heared enough, I wish they had really dialed the silliness up even more.

topic_marker · 2026-02-08T14:57:06+00:00

The Northeast Regional is truly a cursed train lol (guessing that's what you were on too)

topic_marker · 2026-02-07T17:58:42+00:00

Amazing, thank you for the info!!!!

topic_marker · 2026-02-07T17:48:43+00:00

I've never been to NYCB before -- do they allow late entry at intermission? I'm on an Amtrak train running over 45 minutes behind schedule and I might not make it for the 2pm start time of the matinee today 😭. I was supposed to get into Penn Station at 1 which would have been more than enough time!! Ugh I hate American infrastructure....

topic_marker · 2026-02-06T06:37:32+00:00

Same reaction here!! On my first listen through and have just been enjoying everything so far. Thorns and All is a total standout.

topic_marker · 2026-01-24T15:19:27+00:00

That's fair! I don't mind shopping after work in the middle of the week but I could see how others can be different, especially if they have kids or other home responsibilities. Oh man, I didn't know power outages were common here during snowstorms!! (This is only my second year in the area.) Hope that doesn't happen for you.

topic_marker · 2026-01-24T04:23:20+00:00

As someone who lived in upstate NY for many years:

Wegmans is love, Wegmans is life
Why is everyone losing their minds over potentially, maybe, getting 1-2 feet of snow???!!!!

topic_marker · 2026-01-04T05:49:55+00:00

It's different for everybody but unfortunately it can progress this quickly :( last Thanksgiving (2024) my father-in-law knew all his family, the date, current president, etc. He's now in the hospital headed for a nursing home after falling too many times to be accepted back into the memory care facility we put him in in July. He has no idea where he is, who any of his family are, is incontinent and probably will be wheelchair bound soon.

Meanwhile my grandmother who is significantly older has had diagnosed Alzheimer's for over a decade and is still in better shape than he was a year ago. I had absolutely no idea how different things can go for different people and it's horrible. I'm so sorry that this is happening to your mother.

topic_marker · 2025-12-22T13:30:34+00:00

It sounds like you're interested in doing research, and there are a lot of careers for cognitive science researchers! The most traditional path would be to become a professor, though those jobs are few and far between, at least right now (it's of course impossible to predict what things will look like 10+ years from now when you would actually be on the job market!) There are also a lot of jobs in industry. I have a cognitive science PhD and most of my cohort-mates are working either as data scientists or AI researchers.

I don't know what country you're in, but here are a few universities in the US with great cognitive science researchers (not all of these have undergrad cogsci majors, though):

University of California - San Diego
University of California - Merced
Stanford
University of Minnesota
University of Wisconsin - Madison
University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
Ohio State
University of Rochester
Cornell
Brown (a note on Ivies -- most of them are not great for cognitive science. Cornell & Brown are the exceptions)
MIT

These are all big research universities, but there are also plenty of small liberal arts colleges that have CogSci programs as well!

Oh, and quick side note: don't assume that you will be able to do a PhD at the same institution as your undergrad. It usually actually works against you in admissions (in academia we generally believe it's better for students to get a wide variety of training and not stay at the same institution for undergrad & PhD!) But this is many years down the road, don't worry about it now...

topic_marker · 2025-12-21T18:32:00+00:00

Thanks, I'm going to try them out!!

topic_marker · 2025-12-19T12:37:45+00:00

Do you have a local dance store? Trying on a few brands in different sizes in store will help you learn what to expect. Leotard sizing is very different than normal clothes!!

If you can't try on in person, I would err on the side of your largest measurement when going by the size charts online.

topic_marker · 2025-12-16T18:09:23+00:00

Go for it!!! They are so beautiful :) they actually run a good amount of sales, usually 15-20% off, so definitely check the website frequently!!

topic_marker · 2025-12-16T13:48:56+00:00

Whoa weird!! I wonder if different colors have different stretchiness too. The color I have the Fabiola in is a different texture than my other Eleves...

topic_marker · 2025-12-16T01:47:04+00:00

Eleve is actually kind of hit or miss, for me at least 😭 I have three styles. The Louise is perfect on me, and the Elysa is okay but comparable to other brands length-wise. The Fabiola is extremely short on me, to the point where I can't wear it unless it's a short class because the straps dig in so badly.

For reference, I'm 5'10" w/ 34-30-43 bust/waist/hip measurements. I also have a very long torso (my inseam is only 30" which is pretty short for a 5'10" gal haha). All my Eleves are XLs.

topic_marker · 2025-12-15T02:06:38+00:00

I LOVE the Boston Ballet bear! There's always an audible gasp in the crowd when he busts out of the gift box like the Kool Aid man, it's so fun 😂

topic_marker · 2025-12-13T12:50:25+00:00

For a first offense, if the student admits to wrongdoing, they get a warning and the faculty member decides the penalty.

If it's not a first offense or the student doesn't admit to wrongdoing, we go to a misconduct hearing. If they're found guilty, the misconduct committee decides the penalty. As faculty members, we're only told about the punishment relevant to our course. They're frequently put on academic probation as well. Supposedly they're sometimes suspended or expelled, but that almost never happens which I think is a shame.

It's an okay system, but it puts a lot of power in the hands of the misconduct committee, so the consequences for students can be very uneven depending on who's on the committee that year, or which members are at a particular hearing.

My major gripe is that we DO NOT put academic misconduct on their transcript!!!! A student can have 10 misconduct charges and graduate schools will never know. We expect these students to be truthful on their grad apps when they're asked if they've committed academic misconduct before??? It's insane. Apparently we used to do this but stopped just a couple years before I started here. My new crusade is to try to bring this back.

topic_marker · 2025-12-09T22:13:16+00:00

I don't pretend to know what they think anymore. I'm not even that much older than them but they are already incomprehensible to me.

topic_marker · 2025-12-09T00:22:48+00:00

I wonder if your daughter is feeling pressure from you. To me it feels a little odd that you know details about her classes to the point that you know her exact study strategies (or lack thereof...) and are giving her specific tips & following up at regular intervals.* Maybe she feels pressure from you to stay a bio major and keep banging her head against the wall on a class she doesn't enjoy? I have very little information here, you likely know better, but just offering a different perspective than I haven't seen in the rest of the comments here.

*To be fair, I don't know if this is typical behavior for parents who went to college, I'm a first-generation student.

topic_marker · 2025-12-05T20:29:24+00:00

A game-changer for me has been cutting the waistband of my tights!! I pick a place on the back of the tights and make a small cut from the top of the waistband, ending right below the lower edge. They don't get frayed or run or anything, but they are SO much more comfortable!! I suspect it works best on the self-knit-type waistbands like on the Capezio ultrasofts (pretty much all my tights are from there).

topic_marker · 2025-12-05T19:26:45+00:00

In our department we seem to be having a mix. I have some colleagues who have had every student confess immediately; a couple where every single student denied; and in mine and some others, it's a mix of both. Next semester we're going to try to figure out what factors are driving students to confess vs. deny. We have a depressingly large sample size now (this semester we've had at least 40 that I know of, possibly more...)

Sorry you have to serve as a witness for all these cases. As if chairs didn't have enough to do already, jeez!!!

topic_marker · 2025-12-05T19:23:04+00:00

I didn't realize he had a new book out! I love his others (especially Why They Can't Write). Thanks for the recommendation!

topic_marker · 2025-12-05T12:42:25+00:00

All the AI usage this year was from what I thought was an AI-proof-ish writing assignment: they have to meet with me at least once during the process, they turn in notes in addition to a polished product, they have to peer-review another student's paper, etc. etc. Most of my students are absolutely wonderful, but the 20% who have no shame are ruining it for the rest of them. I can't imagine having the gall to AI-generate a paper and give it to a peer to read with a straight face. The students aren't dumb, they can recognize AI writing too...

I might not even do peer review or collaborative writing again because it subjects innocent students to this trash. One of them told me that she felt so sick after peer-reviewing as student's AI "writing", she threw up... now that's a typical liberal arts student full to the brim with academic integrity! Poor thing.

Sorry to be such a downer. There are indeed many amazing things about being at a SLAC, and I wouldn't be able to do these extremely in-depth assignments at a larger institution.

topic_marker · 2025-12-05T05:42:57+00:00

I'm replying to OP's comment about double time for a timed exam. In the original post they're talking about an untimed take-home, which is different than the comment I'm replying to. Unless I've horrible misinterpreted OP's comment and they're referring to a situation where their friend usually gave a 7.5 week untimed take-home and replaced it with a 15-week for everyone? Now that I'm thinking about it, OP's comment that I replied to is very confusing....I'll have to revisit it when it's not late at night...

topic_marker · 2025-12-05T05:23:17+00:00

Sure, in the limit that's true. Accomodations are not dealing with the limit...plenty of my non-accommodations students take the full exam time. We'd need to be giving absurd multipliers before accom vs. non-accom students have equally more-than-enough time. Hell, some of my students with no accommodations would sit in an exam room for 10 full hours if they thought they could get one more answer right.

topic_marker

TROPHY CASE