Last BASIS Assignment

This final blog post is my last BASIS assignment. After 8 years, hours of classes, homework, stress, tears, and yes, good times too, I am finally done. I’m finished with high school for good, and now just have to wait a month to graduate. I can’t believe that I’m actually finished with everything! 

I had my final AP Research presentation on Monday of this week, and it went well. I put in my AP number and am officially finished with that class (once I finish writing this blog post). 

It’s hard to believe that this is my 10th and final blog post. Thank you so much to everyone (anyone?) who read this. To anyone in the future who comes across this blog: if you are a future employer of mine and this came up when you searched my name, disclaimer: this is 17 year old me and I wrote this in high school. And yes, I know that most of this blog is really embarrassing; please don’t scroll down. If you do, I must say that I have warned you. 

Anyway, this whole process has been such a great experience, and I am so thankful for my research consultant Bob Wilson. He gave me an outstanding opportunity that has opened my eyes to so many things (specifically, to something my eyes do on their own anyway) and I will forever be grateful. I also love that my senior year ended in February, and I have to thank my school for that one. These past few months have been so relaxing, and I look forward to this next month before graduation. 

Attending BASIS has been a long journey. When I first started in fifth grade, I cried every night for the first week because I wanted to leave. I’ve come a long way, because in 12th grade I only cried one night a week instead (just kidding). I’ve been through so much of my life with my classmates here, and traveled from California to Peru to Italy with them. I have a sister in 7th grade, and when she graduates I’ll have already been out of college for a year. I hope to go on to someday get a Ph.D. in Neuroscience. 

This is all a bittersweet time, but I can say that I am truly thankful for the experiences I’ve had at BASIS. I’ll miss some of my teachers a lot, because they have been so nice to me and have taught me so much. Each year has brought me a new perspective, and I’m glad to be leaving high school with so much knowledge, ready to experience college in the fullest way possible. I’ve made friends here that I know I will remain friends with throughout my life. And, all of my experiences and the people at BASIS will always have a special place in my heart. 

Goodbye blogspot!

Presentation

I started off my presentation with an intro that went something like this:

An idea fundamental to the history of the human experience is the idea of free will. Greek philosophers like Heraclitus who argued that there were laws that the universe followed, and others like Leucippus argued for determinism, the thought that everything is already determined and we have no control over our actions. Religions were created to try to explain the phenomena around us, and quell our most basic impulses. 

Since the time of ancient Greece and the beginning of major religions, modern thinkers have propositioned that maybe we do in fact have free will. We know we each have our own minds and make our own decisions. In fact, even our society is based around the idea that we are all free thinkers, like our Founding Fathers. 

Recently, however, science has brought us back to this fundamental question. It has pointed us in a new direction, which is to say, yes, we know we each have our own thoughts and feelings and ideas and expressions, but are we really in control? Science isn’t pointing us in the direction of God or an external determining factor, but rather an internal one. Our brains determine everything for us, and even what may seem like the slightest imperceptible change could in fact determine a large part of who you are. 

And who is that, exactly? Everything we do is guided by neural networks. Sleeping, eating, breathing, thinking - you name it. Your unconscious brain performs activities that you aren’t aware of in the instant you’re performing them - for example, when your foot automatically jumps to the brakes while driving in a dangerous situation. when people’s eyes are dilated we find them more attractive without even realizing it due to evolution since that means they’re looking for someone. The final example about how the unconscious works that I’ll give is that strippers make more money during certain times of the month, even though men aren’t consciously aware of their fertility levels. All of these decisions that we make - consciously or not - embody who we are, and in order to understand who we are, we need to understand the brain and how it makes decisions. 

However, I'm going to change my presentation after constructive criticism I received. Instead of focusing on this intro, I'll make it shorter and to the point, and make most of my slides into pictures. I also need to explain the graphs in my presentation in a better and clearer way. I need to connect my thoughts better and string them together. Also, I need to actually ask my research question and bring it into context. I need to also come up with some creative ways that my research will be useful, and bring them into the presentation. It's so insane that after Monday afternoon I'll be done with the AP Capstone program!

I'm thankful I have the opportunity to practice it one more time on Monday morning, so that I can fix up any last minute changes that I might need to make.  

Word Count: 515

Sending the Paper

The moment we’ve all been waiting for...or at least the moment I’ve all been waiting for...has arrived!! The paper has been submitted and I am officially done with high school!!!!!!!!!! Is this blog post a landmark in my life? Only time will tell. 

I’m not even joking but as I finished writing that sentence I realized that I’m not done with high school yet because I still have to present. This has been really anticlimactic! 

Submitting the paper was so scary - I don’t know why - I was just scared that when the College Board received my paper it would actually be blank or like a picture of my dog from my computer. I really don’t know why but I guess I just have irrational fears? But whatever, to be honest part of me knows deep down that it’s fine, because I’m already in college!!

Last week I said that the results were a surprise. Thank you for your incredible patience. I know, waiting a week was tough. Anyway, the results showed that blink rates were higher for young males, and risk seeking declined with age for males (but not females). Also, in regard to individual questions, people were more risk averse for gains than losses, which is in line with classical findings.  

I talked to professors about my research and even they were like wow, you sat there and counted blinks, more power to you. Yes, I realized that my research was me literally just counting people blinking. Cutting edge technology. I guess I have to start small though. Counting blinks has been somewhat of a life changing experience in that while I was doing my research, when I watched TV, I started counting people’s blink rates. For example, during the State of the Union, I counted Joe Biden’s blinks and compared them to Paul Ryan’s (since they were both sitting behind Obama). Paul Ryan blinked less and I equated that to being less risky and therefore more conservative. Joe Biden blinked more, and as the news will tell you he is kind of impulsive when it comes to saying certain things (I love Joe Biden though so it’s all good). I actually saw Paul Ryan over the summer at the festival that I volunteer at, and after hearing his ideas I was like hmmm..yeah he’s conservative. I didn’t need to see him at a festival to know that though (obviously) but every time I see him on TV I’m like heyyyy! But then I’m like noooooo.. he is very conservative but maybe he’ll get there one day.

I know I’ve been getting a lot of positive feedback (THANK YOU!) but honestly I feel like I’m going to be so embarrassed about this blog in like 5 years. Like I actually already am but I just know that it’ll be so much worse in time. 

Anyway have a great week!