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Harvard Student-Athlete" will explore what life is like away from
the playing fields for select Harvard student-athletes through
their own first-person narrative. For a full list of blog
entries, click here.
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Caroline Code
Sept. 23, 2014
September at Harvard is always an exciting time; the buzz around
campus is energetic and lively, with countless fun things going on.
Now that we are past the honeymoon period of shopping week,
everyone is buckling down and getting back into the daily grind of
schoolwork and activities. With the standard mix of classes,
extracurricular activities, music or sports practices, and social
events, every one of my peers I've spoken with has an
impressively busy schedule. Thinking about it, I wonder how we as
students manage to do things like have the homework completed
and be on time for class, never miss a rehearsal or
practice, or attend both a job fair and social event in one night.
It's a daily struggle, but we somehow survive – and
enjoy it.
This past Friday, I was walking to my 9am lab (I know, lab on
Friday…?) cold, tired, and definitely not mentally ready to
inject mice with glucose and insulin this early in the morning. And
it was in Northwest Labs, which is practically the furthest place
on campus from my warm bed in Leverett House. Cursing myself for
even taking SCRB 175 in the first place, I started preparing with
my lab group. We injected three groups of mice with saline
(control), glucose and insulin and measured their plasma glucose
levels over the course of an hour in an effort to see the effects,
the basis for understanding their role in diabetes. Handling live
mice is pretty weird at first, but once we got going with the lab I
forgot all about my reservations. Sure, it's semi-interesting
to hear about the effects of insulin and glucose on blood glucose
levels when you're in class, but actually being hands on and
watching it happen is so much cooler. Adding another dimension to
the lab, a close friend of mine is affected by diabetes, so I was
also motivated by a personal connection to the material. After lab,
I felt so much more connected to what we were learning about, and
didn't stop talking about what I did all weekend –
which I'm sure my friends got tired of hearing about!
Being able to engage in the course material in such a way really
makes learning worthwhile and exciting. It's labs like this,
really captivating lectures, or in-depth section discussions that
keep me excited and motivated to stay on top of things. Sometimes
it's easy to get lost in the hectic schedules of activities
and social events, but it makes such a difference to remind
ourselves of these invaluable learning experiences.
A few days ago, Harvard College Dean Khurana sent out a greeting
to the student body where he touched on the difference between a
simple “transactional education” and a
“transformational education”, which challenges a
student to seek out meaningful experiences. In conversations with
students, he said he has noticed that students often say they feel
pressure to engage in as many extracurricular activities as
possible, and that they are stretched too thin over the
non-academic opportunities. Reflecting on his comments, I
considered my own schedule of activities and how they fall on Dean
Khurana's spectrum of transactional and transformational
education. Perhaps I should make an effort to find more applicable
connections in my classes like the one I felt with the SCRB lab?
It's something to think about, and an area to work on
enriching.
After a big win this Saturday against Yale, the field hockey
team earned a well-deserved day off on Sunday which we all used to
catch up on work and relax. We are so excited about the progress of
our season so far, and can't wait to face off against
Northeastern on Wednesday and Penn on Saturday!
