Welcome to this week's guest blogger and 2014 Joyce Ivy Summer Scholar Daniela Muhleisen, a rising senior at Walled Lake Northern High School in metro Detroit. Daniela recently finished two weeks at Brown University's Pre-College program where she participated in a course called "The Psychology of Good and Evil."
I was sweating. My room was wicked hot, and I had somehow managed to forget a fan amongst my six bags of luggage. I was sure I would be dead from heat exhaustion before my first class.
Luckily, I survived without a fan. My class was fascinating. There were twenty students, ages 15-17, from all over the world, and each one of them brought a new perspective on psychology and its debates. Every day was filled with interesting discussion and news stories, and I swear, the three hours flew by faster than a 30-minute lunch period at my high school. Of course, there was also homework, but this mostly consisted of reading Zimbardo’s “The Lucifer Effect,” which proved to be very enlightening. (Note: prison experiments are not always the best subject to read at one in the morning).
I met a ton of amazing people during these two weeks. My closest friends were from Cape Cod, Wyoming, Bulgaria, and New York. I had never met anyone from Wyoming before, much less Bulgaria. It was fascinating to learn about their different homes, and I learned a lot of other new information from them during our time at Brown, too.
SUSY particles are shadow particles, not to be confused with anti-particles. Before meeting my new friends, I had no idea what this meant. The professors at Brown didn’t teach me this (I wasn’t in a physics class)—my friends did. Matt, for instance, is a really cool kid who liked quantum physics and art. I think that is amazing: quantum physics and art. Are those not completely polar opposites? From Matt, I learned that, in many ways, they aren’t. When we were at the train station, he showed me some Richard Feynman videos and then taught me some of the basics of this science. There was something so beautiful in the intricacies of physics, and I was consumed. Matt helped me to see that science and art both seek to understand, explore, challenge beliefs and form new ones.
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There were plenty of cultural activities to explore, as well. I went to a concert in Providence with a ton of my friends one Friday night. The next day, we went to the IMAX Theater and the mall. We also toured the nearby Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and their art museum (I was so excited to find friends who liked museums!). On Sunday, we took a bus to Boston and toured Harvard and MIT. We were so exhausted when we arrived that we mostly just lay in the middle of MIT reading our new books (on quantum physics). I’m not sure I’ve ever walked as much as I did in those two weeks in New England. I wore down two pairs of flip-flops!
During most of our leisure time, though, my friends and I just relaxed on the Main Green in the middle of Brown's campus and listened to our friend Daniel play his guitar or Tibetan bowl. And we’d laugh. We were kids from all over the country, all over the world, sitting together on some patch of grass in the middle of Rhode Island and having a great time.
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Daniela with new friends from Brown Pre-College
Luckily, I survived without a fan. My class was fascinating. There were twenty students, ages 15-17, from all over the world, and each one of them brought a new perspective on psychology and its debates. Every day was filled with interesting discussion and news stories, and I swear, the three hours flew by faster than a 30-minute lunch period at my high school. Of course, there was also homework, but this mostly consisted of reading Zimbardo’s “The Lucifer Effect,” which proved to be very enlightening. (Note: prison experiments are not always the best subject to read at one in the morning).
Doing homework on the Main Green
SUSY particles are shadow particles, not to be confused with anti-particles. Before meeting my new friends, I had no idea what this meant. The professors at Brown didn’t teach me this (I wasn’t in a physics class)—my friends did. Matt, for instance, is a really cool kid who liked quantum physics and art. I think that is amazing: quantum physics and art. Are those not completely polar opposites? From Matt, I learned that, in many ways, they aren’t. When we were at the train station, he showed me some Richard Feynman videos and then taught me some of the basics of this science. There was something so beautiful in the intricacies of physics, and I was consumed. Matt helped me to see that science and art both seek to understand, explore, challenge beliefs and form new ones.
Sunset over University Hall, the oldest building on Brown's campus
There were plenty of cultural activities to explore, as well. I went to a concert in Providence with a ton of my friends one Friday night. The next day, we went to the IMAX Theater and the mall. We also toured the nearby Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and their art museum (I was so excited to find friends who liked museums!). On Sunday, we took a bus to Boston and toured Harvard and MIT. We were so exhausted when we arrived that we mostly just lay in the middle of MIT reading our new books (on quantum physics). I’m not sure I’ve ever walked as much as I did in those two weeks in New England. I wore down two pairs of flip-flops!
At the weekend concert in Providence
During most of our leisure time, though, my friends and I just relaxed on the Main Green in the middle of Brown's campus and listened to our friend Daniel play his guitar or Tibetan bowl. And we’d laugh. We were kids from all over the country, all over the world, sitting together on some patch of grass in the middle of Rhode Island and having a great time.
Interested in an experience like Daniela's? Check out the Joyce Ivy Summer Scholars program.
You can also find more information about Brown University Pre-College here.
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