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Meet our Majors: Learn about the College's Undergraduate Programs from the Students Themselves

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The nine majors offered by the College of Sciences provide undergraduate students with countless opportunities for learning, growth, and discovery. In eight Major Monday features, which can be viewed on our Instagram, College of Sciences students told us why they chose to study their major, and what they enjoy about it.

Psychology - Sara Brockmeier

Graduate from Woodstock, Georgia
  1. Why did you choose to study your major at Georgia Tech?  I really enjoyed my AP psychology class in high school and after looking at the psychology curriculum, I knew it was the major for me. 

  2. What is the best part of your major?  Definitely the collegial atmosphere. Since the major is small, everyone knows each other and I get to take multiple classes with all of my friends. 

  3. Use three words to describe your major.  Small but mighty! 

  4. Tell us about your favorite class you’ve taken within your major.  My favorite class was Learning and Memory. It was awesome learning how phenomena like conditioning and habituation are present in the world around us.  

  5. Who is a professor that has inspired you? Professor Sara Dommer over at Scheller. She's an incredible teacher and mentor! 

  6. What do you plan to do after graduation?  I'm pursuing a PhD in Marketing at the University of British Columbia to study ethical consumer behavior. It's pretty rooted in psychological theory! 

 

Earth and Atmospheric Sciences - Dorien Minor

 Third Year from Port Republic, Maryland
  1. Why did you choose to study your major at Georgia Tech? Since Atlanta is really close to many well-known broadcast stations, like The Weather Channel and CNN, having access to many opportunities in Atlanta combined with the amount of hands-on exposure students get within the EAS department made my decision to study at Tech easy. 

  2. What is the best part of your major?  The best part of our major is how much all students and faculty are connected to each other. Since we are a really small major, being able to see familiar faces throughout classes helps us to grow with other colleagues and have more exposure to faculty members.  

  3. Use three words to describe your major. Enriching, Lively, Creative 

  4. Tell us about your favorite class you’ve taken within your major. WxChallenge (EAS 4801): This is a seminar course that allows us to compete in a weather forecasting competition against other meteorology schools in the US and Canada throughout the school year (and, we’re ranked number 4 this year!). 

  5. Who is a professor that has inspired you? Dr. Zachary Handlos: He taught my Physics of the Weather class last semester, and being able to see how passionate he was whenever he talked about the weather left a lasting impression on me, and shows the scope of how important the weather is for all people.  

  6. What do you plan to do after graduation? After graduation, my goal is to work for The Weather Channel or CNN as a broadcast meteorologist, then to own my own STEM-based television network. 

 

Mathematics - Steven Creech

Graduate from Cumming, Georgia
  1. Why did you choose to study your major at Georgia Tech? I decided to major in mathematics as I saw that math was the language of the sciences. 

  2. What is the best part of your major?  Whenever we prove a statement that statement is always true.  

  3. Use three words to describe your major. Proofs, Beauty, Pure 

  4. Tell us about your favorite class you’ve taken within your major. My favorite class has been algebraic geometry as it provided a dictionary between the language of algebra and geometry. 

  5. Who is a professor that has inspired you? My research advisor Matt Baker has been the professor who has inspired me the most .  

  6. What do you plan to do after graduation? After graduation, I plan to go to graduate school at Brown University to study number theory and algebraic geometry (specifically arithmetic geometry).

 

Neuroscience  - Yasmine Bassil

Graduate originally from Batroûn, Lebanon living in Marietta, Georgia.
  1. Why did you choose to study your major at Georgia Tech? I was incredibly passionate about the interdisciplinarity and novelty of neuroscience as a prospective student, and I had heard that the Neuroscience major was to be made official soon. I was actually part of the first cohort of Neuroscience majors, and I switched into the major as soon as it came out. It was perfect timing – I got to attend a school that I loved and pursue a major that I was excited about!   

  2. What is the best part of your major?  The best part of my major is its range of applications to a variety of different career paths and its interdisciplinary nature.  

  3. Use three words to describe your major. Innovative. Collaborative. Creative. 

  4. Tell us about your favorite class you’ve taken within your major. My favorite class was Methods in Neuroscience, through which we were able to design an experiment using a specific neuroscience method and present projected results, almost as if we had completed a full research project! 

  5. Who is a professor that has inspired you? Dr. Cameron Tyson – he cares about the success, well-being, and growth of every one of his students. He is an empowering leader and an incredible mentor.  

  6. What do you plan to do after graduation? I’ll be pursuing a PhD in Neuroscience at Emory University, hoping to study brain mapping and whole-brain functional connectivity. 

 

Biochemistry - Pooja Parikh

Fourth year with a Spanish minor on a pre-health track from Suwanee, Georgia. 
  1. Why did you choose to study your major at Georgia Tech? I chose to study Biochemistry at Georgia Tech because it creates a sense of community that fosters curiosity and innovation.     

  2. What is the best part of your major?  The best part of my major is its unique ability to relate complex cellular functions to an understanding of life at large.  

  3. Use three words to describe your major. Life, exploration, connection.

  4. Tell us about your favorite class you’ve taken within your major. My favorite class at Tech was Anatomy!   

  5. Who is a professor that has inspired you? Dr. Tyson cares about the success of every student, and he was able to give us real world applications to the concepts we were learning.

  6. What do you plan to do after graduation? I plan to enter the medical field and tie in my passion of promoting global health education.    

 

Chemistry - Charles Wood

Third year from Marietta, Georgia. 
  1. Why did you choose to study your major at Georgia Tech? I chose to study chemistry at Tech because my high school chemistry teacher earned his doctorate in organic chemistry from Georgia Tech, and he really lit a spark in me for the subject. 

  2. What is the best part of your major?  The best part about my major is the community. It's awesome because it's a relatively small major, and you get to know people pretty well in lab. Consequently, a few people have seen me bust a move or two in lab. Dr. Evans even gifts us free donuts and coffee at least twice a month, and Dr. Stephens and Dr. O'Mahony host a very wholesome chemistry knitting club open to anyone! 

  3. Use three words to describe your major. Tight-knit; Empathetic; Catalytic.

  4. Tell us about your favorite class you’ve taken within your major. My favorite class has been analytical chemistry because the lab and lecture corresponded really well to each other, and Dr. Fernandez and Dr. O'Mahony  are so so kind. The experience was really focused on the learning, so you could make the mistakes you had to make in order to do better. 

  5. Who is a professor that has inspired you? Dr. Pollet inspires me with how compassionate she is for students. She's a fantastic lecturer that gets and applies constant feedback in order to accommodate her students. She's also hilarious and a wonderful research mentor. 

  6. What do you plan to do after graduation? After my major, I plan to go to medical school to eventually become a psychiatrist. Being so involved with mental health on campus, I'm really motivated to continue helping others in this field.    

 

Biology - Sara Cleland

Graduate from Suwanee, Georgia.
  1. Why did you choose to study your major at Georgia Tech? There are tons of research opportunities! 

  2. What is the best part of your major?  The professors!

  3. Use three words to describe your major. Relevant, engaging, innovative.

  4. Tell us about your favorite class you’ve taken within your major. Genetics lab - I had the opportunity to learn useful research techniques in a low-stress setting! 

  5. Who is a professor that has inspired you? Dr. Kerr! She is passionate and gets to know her students personally.

  6. What do you plan to do after graduation? Grad school at Tech for a MS in Bioinformatics.

 

Physics -  Robin Glefke

Graduate minoring in Geophysics and Astrophysics from Warner Robbins, Georgia. .
  1. Why did you choose to study your major at Georgia Tech? At first it was for the challenge and because space is awesome, but I’ve stayed because of the amazing way math can spit out connections between small scale structures and weird real life phenomena, like pearlescence in a crystal or X-ray emissions from pulsars! 

  2. What is the best part of your major?  Finally putting together all the math and physical picture to understand a hard problem.

  3. Use three words to describe your major. Challenging, Weird, Beautiful.

  4. Tell us about your favorite class you’ve taken within your major. The higher level classes are the most interesting because you have to use all of these tools you’ve built up. Right now I’m in an atomic physics class and solid state physics class learning about lasers, photonics, and superconductivity from the perspective of a crystal lattice! 

  5. Who is a professor that has inspired you? Martin Mourigal – he’s eccentric and has a very healthy view on learning and achievement.

  6. What do you plan to do after graduation? I plan on grad school but because I graduate in the fall I’d like to maybe go to Alaska to work for the national park service during my gap semester. 

To learn more about our ninth College of Sciences major, Applied Physics, visit here or the website of the School of Physics.

To stay updated with our students and activities in the College of Sciences, follow our Instagram @gtsciences.

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  • Workflow Status:Published
  • Created By:sbarone7
  • Created:02/01/2021
  • Modified By:jhunt7
  • Modified:02/09/2021

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