Brian's Blog: Governor's School in the Sciences

Hola mis amigos! My name is Brian Hou and I am a rising senior. Today, on July 12th, I began the 3 week program Governor's School in the Sciences, which is held at Drew University. Since today is my first day, I don't really have much to say, but I'll give a brief overview of my impressions and the first day. Attached are two photos of the lovely room that I share with the new friend that I have made.

As you can see, it's not much. My roommate and I share a suite with 2 other kids, and together we share a bathroom that is kind of poopy (punpunpun)...anyway it'll be quaint next 3 weeks. The dorms are still pretty comfortable. The food here? Well just look at number 9 on this article (http://www.medicaldaily.com/ten-worst-college-dining-halls-242207). Nonetheless, there are many great restaurants within walking distance, such as Chipotle. The counselors let you go out pretty much whenever you want if you return by 11:30pm. On our first day, we left campus at 9:45 pm to find a closed Walgreens. The kids here are super awesome. Most of them are super friendly and share common interests with you, so there's plenty to talk about. The first day was pretty tame, with all the orientations and rules speeches, but it has been a blast. The 3 courses that I ended up getting are: Cell Biology and Cancer (hopefully I find a cure for cancer woohoo), Special Relativity, and Human Evolution. The Lab that I got was Experiments in Biology, and the Team Research Project that I got was Project in Psychology: Cognitive Illusions. They let you rank your top choices, but you might not always get what you want. However, the classes here are extremely interesting, as one of the team projects is cloning :o :o There is a lot of freedom here, and there is a decent amount of free time. Unfortunately, the weight room is off limits :( Moving in has been pretty tiring, so I'll conclude it for today. More to come in the next few weeks, so stay classy Monty.

Post GSS

Hi Everyone!

Well, GSS has officially ended a few days ago, and I've been so exhausted and sad that it's finally over. The past 3 weeks were possibly the most amazing 3 weeks of my life, and I will never forget the memories and experiences I had at GSS. My research project turned out to be a huge success. In our project, we compared how high achieving GSS students would compare to the general public in a series of cognitive tasks disguised as a personality test. The general public was composed of a group of anonymous individuals who took the survey through a website called Amazon Mechanical Turks, in which anyone can take surveys from businesses and you can be paid for taking the surveys. My fellow peers at Gov School really enjoyed our presentation, and they were very curious about the project, particularly regarding the topics in which they were tricked. If you want to try a cognitive illusion of your own, just search up the Table Top illusion, which is a very simple yet mind boggling one.

My lab was absolutely amazing. We did so many cool experiments, such as dunking our heads in zero degree water to test how our body would respond, we did lie detector tests, we dissected fish, and some people even got the chance to dissect a dogfish shark! When I dissected the stomach of my fish, I discovered that there were soooo many small shrimps in the fish's stomach. Quite a shame he never got the chance to digest them.

Classes were really cool, but everyone was so tired from Gov School that by the third week, almost half the class was sleeping in all the classes. That's because everyone was having so much fun when they weren't in classes, and everyone slept really late. Every Friday there would be a dance that was about 4 hours long, and every Saturday would have a movie (Imitation Game/Interstellar). In addition, we had a banquet on the last Friday, and then we pulled an all nighter on the last night.

When I think back about my experience, I realize that it wasn't really the learning or the intellectual stuff that made Gov School so great. Sure, you get to learn a lot about topics you might not learn about in school, but honestly, you can just learn that on your own if you're committed enough. The real distinguishing factor about Gov School was the bonding and relationships you make with your peers. You make so many friends who are like minded but also astonishingly diverse. It's hard to explain. You create so many inside jokes that no one else will ever understand. GSS has made me a lot better of a person, and I thank the Governor's School program for doing so. Shout out to all the counselors who were absolutely amazing. I got pretty sad reminiscing while I typed, so I guess I'll stop here. I might make more posts later, but feel free to hmu if you have any questions, and definitely let me know if you're applying next year. Peace out girl scout.