Other Academic Interests
Other than my research career, I am also quite fascinated by many other academic disciplines. I've always had an excellent spatial/visual memory, which has led me towards subjects such as geography and linguistics, which demand a great deal of memorization. I see mass memorization as an exciting challenge of how to categorize the given information in the most relevant and efficient ways, with the percent of content accurately remembered as a metric to assess different strategies. For example, I have drawn countless maps from memory of Fairfield (my hometown), Connecticut, or the country/world as a whole. I love taking the time to admire all of the little details of such complex natural and constructed systems as plate tectonics or interstate highways. I now draw maps for many subjects I learn, such as organic chemistry. When I was studying for my final, I drew a "map" of all of the chemical species we had to learn about. I then thought of the reactions as "roads" in between the different locations, and noticed key trends more easily. For example, adding Lithium Aluminum Hydride usually takes you "down" and to the "right" on the map. While oxidation state of the central carbon and chemical stability replaced north, south, east, and west, I loved my new map so much I remastered it for MCAT studying. I got a 100% on the organic chemistry questions on my practice tests and a 130 on the chemistry/physics section of the actual test, representing a 96th percentile score.
