One of the best jobs to have on campus is a library job! You basically get paid to do your homework. I worked at Kresge Physical Sciences Library my sophomore year and I got some of my best grades that term!
Right now, I get paid to do research in an education and neuroscience lab called The Reading Brains Lab. We use ERP/EEG technology to look at people's brain waves as they do reading related tasks. The goal of our research is to understand the brain processes behind reading in hopes to help those with reading disabilities and address the nation's problems with low reading proficiency levels in children. I started out in this lab last year after applying for a grant for sophomores through the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and now I am a Presidential Research Scholar. There are freshman, sophomores, juniors, seniors, and grad students in my lab. It's interesting research, looks great on a resume, and I also make money!!
Check out what your brain waves look like!
Dear Jana,
ReplyDeleteI just stumbled across this blog entry about your work at The Reading Brains Lab. It sounds great. What a wonderful opportunity. I'll leaving a quick post, that might fit with Life at Dartmouth and the focus of your (and your colleagues') research. I'm a 1976 graduate of Dartmouth, who found out a number of years later that I have some subtle but significant neurological disorders of learning and attention. One big impact on my education (the impact continues today) was the difficulty I had/have reading. I'm a very slow reader, find myself constantly beginning sentences over and over again, and have difficulty retaining written information. As a Dartmouth student was very difficult (often impossible) to handle the reading load, and I was fortunate that I was Visual Studies major, where I could use my visual/spatial skills and strengths. Things have changed a lot since I was at Dartmouth for students with various disabilities. It seems there are wonderful things going on there, like what you are doing, and at the same time it appears that the College is still wrestling with disability/accessibility issues.
Best wishes to you, the College, and students looking to apply to Dartmouth.
Dear Ward,
ReplyDeleteThank you for commenting. I love the research we do in the Reading Brains Lab. This is the science research that should be incorporated into teacher education programs and be the foundation for education policy because there are so many students who have experiences similar to yours. Please go to our website to see more of what we do http://www.dartmouth.edu/~readingbrains/
I also wanted to let you know that the Academic Skills Center (ASC) at Dartmouth provides a lot of support for students with disabilities. I have friends who are able to get their readings audio recorded through the ASC, and they also get one on one skills training. One of my good friends had always had trouble with information processing and the skills center diagnosed her particular reading disability and now works with her and her professors each term to provide necessary accommodations for tests and assignments. As you can see there is a lot being done at the College to address learning disabilities and accessing resources.