Project Proposal: A reflection on my freshman year of college (Fall 2021 - Spring 2022)

By the time I began applying to colleges in my Senior year, not only had I ended up on the track to begin studying neuroscience for my undergraduate major, but I was also applying and attending my classes completely virtually, as this was during Fall of 2020 when COVID had been running rampant throughout the world. My trajectory had completely diverged from pursuing music or the arts; primarily because I had seen every artistic avenue be called into question once the pandemic shut most media outlets down for what would be an indefinite period and felt STEM would put me on a more stable career path. Thus, my sights were set on a future where I would be helping people who struggled with things similar to myself and my battles with my own mental health–I felt I could offer an insightful perspective to the sensitive subjects I would be addressing. I even ended up getting admitted into the program that I thought would have the most opportunities for the intersection of neuroscience and psychology: the Biopsychology Cognition and Neuroscience degree program at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor!

When I got to college, things were still in the process of opening back up, and I found myself isolating a lot in my room. My roommate would consistently leave the city on the weekends and I ended up alone quite often. By the midpoint of my freshman year I had really only made one friend who I spent most of my time making and talking about music with, and at the same time had been seriously questioning my future and, most importantly, my career goals. By second semester of that same year, as my mental health was further declining, I had not only undeclared from my original major of Biopsychology Cognition and Neuroscience, but had also already written about 50 songs since beginning college and would soon be admitted into a behavioral health unit. 

--To Be Continued--