Learning Something New

 You know the saying, “you learn something new everyday”? I love it because it’s true. From the smallest detail to the biggest concept, we are continuously learning. Being in the science field, I’m very much accustomed to this. This semester, I learn everyday through a wide range of classes:

1. Ecology
2. Developmental Psychology 
3. Evolution 
4. Animal Behavior
5. STEM Success

In this blog post, I’m going to share a few things I learned.

In developmental psychology, I learned that babies under six months can't self-soothe. When they cry, they are under a lot of stress and the stress hormone, cortisol, shoots up. When a caregiver picks them up, cortisol levels drop and the baby feels much better. Also, the baby will adequately begin to self-regulate after six months of age. It may be believed that picking up a baby when they cry will spoil them (I thought this was true before I took this class). However, this is inaccurate. At the end of the day, picking them up is beneficial for them. 

In STEM success, we are reading Daring Greatly by Brené Brown. Ever since I read the introduction, the book caught my attention and I wanted to keep reading. The author talks about scarcity, vulnerability and other common characteristics that are looked down on. During the first three chapters, she expresses how characteristics that are applauded for are often the result of the “weak” characteristics. For example, those who are courageous display vulnerability… WHAT? I never would have thought these two would go hand-in-hand. However, upon reading her book, I can see the relationship now. Stepping outside one’s comfort zone is vulnerability.  Isn’t stepping outside one’s comfort zone also courageous? This is something I learned and hope to bring down my guard to see what’s on the other side. Whether it’s good or bad, it’ll be added onto my “what did you learn today?” list.

Figure 1. A drawing of a thinking brain. 

Citation:

“Collection of Thinking Brain Cliparts (45).” Free Thinking Brain Cliparts, Download Free Clip Art, Free Clip Art on Clipart Library, clipart-library.com/thinking-brain-cliparts.html.