While my HAP turned out to be nothing like I planned on, I am still glad that I did it. At the beginning, when I was more interested in music, I was less focused. Pretty quickly though I realized I would have to shift directions since the work involved to get an IRB, subjects, and the right brain imaging machinery. Ideally, I would have used a MEG test; however that was not going to be practical since MEG scans are the most expensive and difficult of the scans. Even getting an EEG machine would have been too complicated, even after talking to people at UCSD Medical School and in the psychology, cognitive science, bioengineering departments. That was pretty disheartening; however, it may be a project to do in graduate school, which would be pretty neat. I did end up very happy with my current project, because not only is something incredibly useful, given the rise of the baby boomers and high percentage of an aging population, but I also have some personal experience with caregiving. It was not at all something I considered when I signed up for the LCS program (like my music/memory project) but I have found it really interesting; especially when I was put in contact with Dr. Hamill, who is one of only 12 experts on childhood caretaking, which is a huge chunk of the population, given that these minors could be taking care of parents/grandparents/siblings for a range of reasons, like drug addiction, mental illness, cancer, etc. I hope to be able to continue this project in the years to come.
When reflecting on the class, it was not what I expected. I thought it was going to be more interdisciplinary, but it was more policy and housing focused than what I expected. Nonetheless, aging policy was not something I had much background in, and it was interesting to learn about that. I was grateful it was a small and hands on class where I got to build connections with my classmates, unlike a much larger lecture which can depersonalize the learning experience.
When reflecting on the class, it was not what I expected. I thought it was going to be more interdisciplinary, but it was more policy and housing focused than what I expected. Nonetheless, aging policy was not something I had much background in, and it was interesting to learn about that. I was grateful it was a small and hands on class where I got to build connections with my classmates, unlike a much larger lecture which can depersonalize the learning experience.