A Whale of a Passion for Psychology :: Graduate Admissions Essays

A Whale of a Passion for Psychology A beluga behemoth helped me first control my true academic passion. I worn out(p) my high school summers and weekends volunteering at the New York Aquarium, first in the education department, and later in the training department. It was there, through casual and look-oriented observations of cetaceans, that I began to wonder nearly animal and human minds. I later had the opportunity to participate in an observational research work out, helping to demonstrate data on the behaviors of new whale calves and mothers. My informal and formal observations fed my interest in the phylogenetic and ontogenetic bases of cognition and language. As a psychological science educatee at my school, I had many opportunities to research and observe human psychology, both in and out of the classroom. As a sophomore, a capacious with a professor and fellow students in a seminar class, I helped design and run a study on categorization and users intentions. L ater that year we presented our findings at the annual American Psychological Society meeting. In that selfsame(prenominal) year I also assisted a professor in conducting a study on the effect of familiar and unfamiliar music on reading comprehension. I spent the summer following my sophomore year (1997) as a research subordinate in the my school Psychology Department, funded by a grant from the Howard Hughes Foundation. I collaborated with a professor, a fellow undergraduate student, and a visiting high school student to research, design, and run a study on attitudes towards germs and illness. This included conducting an extensive literature review, specifying research questions, and designing questionnaires that would help us effectively answer our research questions. In addition to strengthening my research abilities, this obtain gave me the invaluable opportunity to interact with fellow researchers as a student, a peer, and a mentor. My extracurricular research gravel durin g my sophomore and junior years of college gave me the tools to individually develop and carry out research projects. During my senior year at my school, I completed a long term library-based research project on the evolution of the human linguistic ability. As a person who tends to look at the big picture when conducting research, this project was the perfect opportunity for me to integrate research from numerous fields and subfields in order to answer a psychologically based question. Through the study of anthropology, paleoneurology, neuropsychology, linguistics, and psycholinguistics, I explored theories debating the neurological and behavioral bases for language evolution.A Whale of a Passion for Psychology Graduate Admissions Essays A Whale of a Passion for Psychology A beluga whale helped me first realize my true academic passion. I spent my high school summers and weekends volunteering at the New York Aquarium, first in the education department, and later in the tra ining department. It was there, through casual and research-oriented observations of cetaceans, that I began to wonder about animal and human minds. I later had the opportunity to participate in an observational research project, helping to record data on the behaviors of new whale calves and mothers. My informal and formal observations fed my interest in the phylogenetic and ontogenetic bases of cognition and language. As a psychology student at my school, I had numerous opportunities to research and observe human psychology, both in and out of the classroom. As a sophomore, along with a professor and fellow students in a seminar class, I helped design and run a study on categorization and users intentions. Later that year we presented our findings at the annual American Psychological Society meeting. In that same year I also assisted a professor in conducting a study on the effects of familiar and unfamiliar music on reading comprehension. I spent the summer following my sophomore year (1997) as a research assistant in the my school Psychology Department, funded by a grant from the Howard Hughes Foundation. I collaborated with a professor, a fellow undergraduate student, and a visiting high school student to research, design, and run a study on attitudes towards germs and illness. This included conducting an extensive literature review, specifying research questions, and designing questionnaires that would help us effectively answer our research questions. In addition to strengthening my research abilities, this experience gave me the invaluable opportunity to interact with fellow researchers as a student, a peer, and a mentor. My extracurricular research experience during my sophomore and junior years of college gave me the tools to independently develop and carry out research projects. During my senior year at my school, I completed a long term library-based research project on the evolution of the human linguistic ability. As a person who tends to look at the big picture when conducting research, this project was the perfect opportunity for me to integrate research from numerous fields and subfields in order to answer a psychologically based question. Through the study of anthropology, paleoneurology, neuropsychology, linguistics, and psycholinguistics, I explored theories debating the neurological and behavioral bases for language evolution.