My plan for the year 2020-2021

I’m gonna be a second semester junior next semester. I just wanted to share my academic situation. There’re a lot to share^^;

>I led my independent research project on the neural associations of creative and abstract thinking for the whole last year.

I was supposed to present my work at a Cognitive Neuroscience of Creativity conference, but the conference will be postponed until next fall.

>This summer, I will take an online training class offered by Emory University. I’m also planning to take some online classes and read books/articles related to neuroscience, mind, and art designs.

>I was selected as the visiting research student of the year 202-2021 in Cognitive Science department at Indiana University in Bloomington.

I will work on an independent project while taking classes and living there for a year. I’m thinking of doing some sort of computational modeling of creativity on individual or collective level. My mentor is Dr. Goldstone who is a learning figure in the field and has collaborated with Douglas Hofstadter, one of the most respectable cognitive scientists.

>For Summer 2021, I was fortunate to receive a research position at Center for the Study of Language and Information at Stanford University.

I’m terrified to get a chance to study at one of the top Cognitive Science programs in the world. I will work full time as a research assistant for the whole next summer. It was originally scheduled this summer but deferred because of the pandemic situation.

I’m planning to come back to DePauw Fall 2021 to work on my honors thesis and complete my college education.

In the future, I hope to develop frameworks of knowing, thinking, and living that would provide important insights to understanding and possibilities of intelligence, feminism, and psychiatry. I want to take different approaches (experiments, computer simulations, and/or theories). And as a contemporary art lover, I also wish to combine art making as a form of research. Art provides a great platform to explore a more realistic model of intelligence and illuminate the possibilities/limitations of our thinking and knowing about our intelligence.

I will continue working hard to polish my skills and knowledge. As overcoming recurrent depression, I’m more determined to serve as a model and combat the wrong stigma to resilience and creativity of people with mental illness.

Thank you so much for having helped and assisted me along the way:) I hope the next year will be a wonderful one for you all!

Promises

I felt like I was in prison. I was urged to write something heavy and dark but I’m trying to not do so here to make this helpful for some of the people reading this post. I need to write this for myself and as a determination to move on to the next stage of my life. 

This is what happened — I have had depression for last five years. I was completely worn out during high school. I was too fatigued to move out from bed for a month. I withdrew from my social life for a couple months. I couldn’t help but dropped out my high school. I couldn’t get rid of my feelings to hurt myself and suicidal thoughts (like feeling like being hit by a car to remove my suffering). I once tried to hung myself to end my stress. I addicted to self-hurting behaviors. I woke up all night and slept during day to soothe my guilty feeling that I couldn’t live like normal people. I believed my life would end if I couldn’t readjust myself to the society somehow. I was so alone. I knew nobody is an expert of life, and counseling or seeing a doctor didn’t help to relieve my sufferings so I kept struggling by myself.

I am still sometimes caught in the depressed state. I become super sensitive to cues of social rejection, and my thoughts go irrational. I become apathetic to everything. It’s hard to get work done. Sometimes telling me that I would die if I couldn’t finish my work is the only way to get things done. This’s what might sometimes make me look deligent and desperate for work.

I’m sometimes exposed to high level of stress that deprive my energy and motivation. I’m sotimes too tired to respond to others’ calling. I sometimes feel like throwing up everything. But I’m still alive. 

I always felt I’m somewhat different from people around me. I didn’t know when this feeling has started. I couldn’t get well with the majority of classmates. I got some neglect or subtle harassment. I acted fine but they hurt my feelings a lot. I still don’t like mingling with a group of high-schooler-minded or narrow minded people who exclude misfits.

Since I read the nonfiction about a girl moving to Finland where she was welcomed and could be herself, I always dreamed of escaping and going to somewhere I finally fit. I studied my second language really hard and did research on the college application system in another country. I’m from homeschooling and wrote one of my recommendation letters by myself. I coped with my mood swings at the same time. It took longer than others and ended up enrolling late, but I could restart my life in another place.

I have struggled for my feeling of isolation and alienation throughout my life. I just didn’t know how to interact with people without feeling obligated, awkward, and embarrassed. I felt like I was always a bystander and out of the circle. I almost gave up being around people. I just didn't know how to express myself and get in the circle and enjoy situations. I lacked a lot of experience of being welcomed by others. I had a really low self-esteem (studying has compensated this). People see my personality as just shyness, but it’s a product of depression, disappointment, discouragement, self-esteem, and the mood and social issues I’ve dealt with. The fact is that I did not take a really low risk of coming up and being acknowledged. But I craved for deep connections with good people. I finally learned how to get to close to people if that is a one-on-one situation. I always wanted to be a part of someone’s life. I was alienating myself from others and even from myself. I might sound like a selfish person talking about my life and how hard it is. But this is sort of selfless selfishness. Instead of thinking all by myself, the more I talk to people, the more I can see myself better and the more likely that I will find a solution. 

I was acting like a non-emotional person. Sometimes that is necessary to hide my emotions and function my life living with a majority of people who don’t suffer. This helps me to force myself to live my life like a robot even to the extent that I feel like I’m someone else. But it’s so true that I’m so vulnerable more than everyone could imagine. I’m so subject to people’s negative emotions. I thought I could give up happy moments in my life in an exchange of my dark feelings. I felt like I was a sensor catching negative emotions inside and around myself. I felt so unsettled to hear about violent insidents and sad news. I tried to reject or ignore them so that they didn't affect my mood. I knew how rough it can be if nobody helps them or nobody just doesn’t notice them. That’s what I went through. I often feel helpless to imagine that there’s always someone suffering somewhere invisible. But I think feeling vulnerable together is one of the best ways to feel connected, and I always have a sincere desire to help people find hope in their life. 

And I couldn't ask for help even for a small thing. I didn’t want to show my clumsiness. I was always acting chill and smart. I don’t know why I was making my life much harder to live.  

When I was a high school student, I was caught up with meta-thinking. Maybe because I wanted to think smarter. I believed that I was a real dumb. During college, I started studying cognitive science. I sometimes feel I need to adjust to other people's way of thinking, but I come to feel like I don't need to be someone else because my thinking is unique. I sometimes suspect if I’m smart enough to understand people’s smartness. But I think it’s such a delight to get to know what it means to be a human born with this wonderful sophisticated mind. The reason for me to live my life would be my mind — the only mind that reveals the deep implications and connections in my way. My curiosity resides on a deeper meanings of my life than just the subjects. 

But I want to remind myself of how hard I am on myself if I imagine I was doing the same things to others. My friends reminded me, keep saying I’m okay, that depression or feeling sad, bad, lonely is NOT okay. I also realized there are two types of coping with hard moments in a life. After acknowledging your feelings and what you suffer from, we need to solve problems practically like seeing specialists, asking for help, starting with small steps. DO SOMETHING LITTLE TO MAKE YOUR LIFE BETTER. And sometimes problems can't be solved easily. I will look at the good sides of life and have hope for a better future. Celebrate ourselves and our efforts and create the hood for ourselves to get better and live a happier life. YOUR LIFE IS ALWAYS A CHOICE. These are all the efforts we need to do. There is no need for blaming or hurting ourselves. Once you know how the best of you feels like, all you have to do is seek for that yourself even in the dark. Maybe you can’t change what you have to deal with soon, but your life will be much easier to live with the good habits and the good mindset. 

So I will finish this post with my new premises to myself.

I deserve being around people. I am worth living. I deserve enjoying my life. I can be a part of someone’s day and even the life of someone important. I’m expected. I won't push hard on myself anymore, and I want to be myself to be loved. I love my intellect and wisdom. I will learn that loving myself is never selfish. SUFFERING IS NEVER A PART OF MY LIFE.

P.S. (2/1/2020) 

I’m not the same person as when I was in the dark days any more, but I’m definitely proud of myself having this core of strength I have built over time in my life.

Review for Spring 2019

This semester I had made some progress in my life. And I felt my efforts started paying off.

I wanted to challenge stuff I wanted to do but hadn't, so I joined the choir. I always wanted to  feel connected to a big team to do something big like a performance. I leaned how to coordinate with people to create the sensitive and perfect harmony. And my brain got definitely better at tuning my tones and pitches. I first felt it would be impossible to be a part of the traditional choir without any solid music experience, but I came to like signing a lot.

Also, I got close to some people. And I now have an important person I am going out with. I didn't think I am a person who likes and is liked by someone. Actually, I had been really concerned about my personality for the last semesters.

My counselor and the book I read during the spring break helped me get out of my negative rumination. Not thinking but taking actions was a most effective remedy for me. As a result, mood swings didn't happen a lot. I learned how to get close to people I trust. I realized I aggravated with being rejected and judged and failing. But I came to see that people around me actually welcome who I am and who I want to be. I sometimes get back to myself who is scared of people, but I believe it's getting better. I always want to have hopes in any situations. And because I wouldn't have met my friends if I had not taken an action, I want to get to know more people. It is great that I came to feel this way naturally without feeling obligated. 

Academically, I gained more experience in speaking and presenting this semester. But I was kind of bored of my classes. And I was thinking of changing schools. I swear I will take as fewer 100 level classes as possible from now on. I will take (or even create) more intellectually challenging classes and study abroad. I appreciate a lot of opportunities I have gained at DePauw, but I could have seeked for more opportunities to challenge my thinking at all - that is all about studying cognitive science. 

I am delighted to participate in the cognitive science fellowship at U Penn this summer. I won the prindle prize for the neuroscience work, gained an opportunity to go to a psychological conference, and I will join ITAP next semester. Not winning something but constantly learning more challenging stuff and refining my thoughts are all what I want to do.

I will update my thoughts in the next post!

Follow Curiosity Not Success

I had been studying for exams, grades, contests, awards. I was sick of them.

I had always blamed myself, "I am not enough." I knew this didn't work when I burned out and thought everything in my life was ruined. I completely lost the meaning of my life. I just studied to fill in the gap of my heart. I set the mechanical goals I even didn't feel like achieving and forced myself to just do them while suppressing my emotions or whatever as if this had been the only way I could get better. 

But I found curiosity. That was my last hope. I found that I could study for myself, not for great reasons. Please forgive myself doing that for now. When I was a little kid, I remember that I said: "I want to be a researcher to solve environmental issues." Yea, I remember. You did feel the aim of your life was contributing yourself to a better society, not for yourself. But you know, I'm sorry I realized I can't do that for now. Just living my life sorely for better and better myself to solve everything, I couldn't help asking myself, "why I am living right now?" When I realized, I got really good at being insusceptible to what I really want to do. Giving up the connection to people, my other life dreams, the excitement I felt one day to cross over the ocean, I come to realize that my vulnerability screams. I want to live my life. Follow the faint light of hope I finally found in my life. 

Knowing I easily get tired of huge information because of deep processing and susceptibility, I am still inclined to do the bad habit I once did. So I want to say again. I don't study my interests for great reasons and success. I just want to study in my way, following my curiosity and trying to find the meaning of my life that I once lost. 

Declared Cognitive Science independent major

I have just declared my major in cognitive science (combining psychology/neuroscience, computer science, philosophy of mind).

I have been interested in various topics connecting to intelligence and cognition, so it was the best choice for me. I also would like to introspect and explore my own thinking about thinking (cognitive science is one of the interesting disciplines which are recursive).

The potential fields I may want to work on in the future: 

Computer and information science (modeling, dynamic systems, AI, human(or brain)-machine interfaces)

Neurophilosophy/ philosophy of psychology/ philosophy of mind

Cognitive neuroscience 

Psychiatry (especially interested in mood disorders, schizophrenia, personality disorders)

In addition, I would like to address issues with discriminations, mental health, education for underrepresented students, connecting with my interests and my career.

The other relevant topics I'm interested to include:
abstraction (math, arts), analogical reasoning, time and space,  knowledge, consciousness, Biology and physics (adaptation, emergence, regularity)

The interested professions:

Scientist in the related fields to above 

Psychiatrist

Writer for a scientific magazine  

Informal proposal for the major

I have been intrigued by thinking about thinking for a long time. Thinking makes us intellectual creatures. Yet, thinking is one of the most elusive and fluid entities because of the intricate parameters of perceptions, bodies, environments, self, and consciousness. The representations we are forming in mind by interacting with the world are incredibly profound. In terms of neuroscience, this fluidity is defined as the plasticity of a brain, changeable nature of intellect from time to time. Thus, one of the challenges to address thinking and intelligence is that we cannot use the only ordinary approaches like framing the target of thinking and put it on the table for analysis because of the highly situated and embodied aspect of thinking.

We also encounter the limitation to overcome when we think about thinking, which is rooted in the fact that we also cannot escape from the intricacy of thinking within ourselves or disciplines we are familiar with. Here, there seems to at least two layers of this approach -- our disciplinary thinking (including interdisciplinary thinking) and meta-disciplinary thinking, which our target of thinking, intelligence, seems to demand, even though the former is indispensable. This complex structure that challenges our thinking styles and perspectives is one of the reasons why I have been immersed in this topic. I am always amazed by dynamism and contextuality of intelligence across different time scales.

These interests are probably attributed to the moratorium during high school. What I have been doing the past few years is to recognize and question the framework of thinking (rather than thoughts) which is situated in the context and embodied. One of the examples that allow us to look at the outside of the box where we are caged is that blind people see and possibly think about the world differently from many of us. In the world which lacks the visual information, the concept of a box, for example, which has inside and outside, might not be same as inside and outside which we recognize and think and many complicated thoughts are based on. This simple case suggests us that if we change one of the parameters on which thinking is embedded, it is possible to change the system of our intelligence dramatically. Furthermore, the insightful cases are from cyborg and artificial intelligence. Each case has unique situations about its perceptions, body, environments, self, and sociomaterial relations. These real entities which are capable of modifying or even constructing the systems of themselves have opened us to the entirely new world to update, design, and extend our thinking of intelligence. Ultimately, the aim of this study is to feed my curiosity on various disciplines, explore the relationships between intelligent systems (application to robotics and AI), and cultivate the knowledge about mental disorders to achieve the world with fewer limits, less stress, and fewer biases. One of the possible ways to achieve this to study the cognitive diversity or to extract the essence of human intelligence not constraint on sources of biases. (Written in October 2018)

The course catalog and the official proposal are here.

https://drive.google.com/a/depauw.edu/file/d/1psts6Ex9Q9UELXPbly2A1SWp-YVKyNNR/view?usp=drivesdk

Finished the first year! Short review

I finished my first year at DePauw.

For academics, I almost don't have any problems (except discussions...). I managed the finals exploiting anxiety and perfectionism (thanks to these, I can always learn more than demands).

Like the first semester, I struggled with personal, social, cultural challenges.
I didn't realize consciously but came to see the demands of uniqueness for individuals. Through the atmosphere here, the view toward myself is getting clear while I feel less connected to others. I don't want to be less sympathetic to others' ways of living and concerns.

For participation in a class or socialization, I think the biggest problem is the variable mood stemming from self-blaming and rigid but others-dependent criteria of my value. I felt depressed and hopeless to see the complexity and disadvantages of my personality and identity as a minority and think about hassles in education because of that.
I came to realize that I need a more constructive way of worrying where I can control or improve something.

For classes, I felt that I should've taken more demanding classes or writing or speaking intensive ones. Outside of classes, I started participating in the lab, Japan Club, and Philosophy club. I hope to develop the ground for discussions around philosophy as a president next year. Also, I'm delighted to invite one of the most respected philosophers/cognitive scientists, Douglas Hofstadter in the future. 

During the winter break, I will study the literature on creativity as a topic of independent summer research. I will also read several interesting books. 

Important principles to maximize study at college

I summarized some principles I personally keep in mind to maximize my learning at college.
 
1. Knowledge is relative and changing 
First of all, this is one of the biggest shifts from high school and a starting point of all of the college learning. Knowledge is not fixed and there to be learned but situated and constructed from time to time. There is no absolute right knowledge even though it looks like that way because it has been speculated and admitted through the means which may be unique to the disciplines.
 
2. Knowledge is complex
Even when we feel that we understand quite well, I do not think we do. The sense of making sense reflects our limited knowledge from which consistent narratives are easily formed. Try not to reduce the complexity of the human thoughts just by your naive knowledge. 

3. Be amazed by cutting-edge studies 
I do not think that the most interesting themes are laid in introductory classes. Find intriguing questions experts in that discipline are concerned about nowadays, which may motivate you throughout the college.
 
3. Know our ways of thinking are limited but explore your way of thinking 
We come to think about things in similar ways. The easiest but hardest way to change your thoughts is to change your way of thinking. Be proud of your thinking constructed over years but remember that there is always a room to explore it. Try to use application, analogy, combination, abstraction. But to do that, you need to step back to introspect your thinking, the process to reach our daily thoughts and ideas. 
 
4. Think deeply +  know more
This is golden. Neither efforts to think deeply and seek for more knowledge can be lacked. Do not let chunks of knowledge from the classes be disconnected. Explore the domain of thoughts and the levels of abstract and concrete, which can be one axis, where the relationships seem to be well articulated. 
 
6. Go beyond class materials 
Do not be satisfied with just touching class materials. That is the border between learners and explorers.
 
7. Think what kind of assumptions knowledge is based on 
This is another important thing to always keep in mind. As I mentioned in 1, knowledge is always accompanied by perspectives and languages (not necessarily languages like English). For example, in feminism, does it assume certain races or classes of citizens? Or in psychology, what kind of population or society the theory is concluded from? 
 
8. Studying is not a task -- It happens all the time 
A study is not kind of thing that you are done with. Efficiency is important sometimes to study for exams, but the difference between studying for studying and studying for something else is if studying is connected to everywhere.
 
What are your principles for your study? Let me know if you have opinions!