Officially (Pre-)Psychobio!

In my bio, I expressed my love for the study of the brain and such, but in real life, my major did not reflect that. It was a while ago when I decided to make the switch from neuroscience to psychobiology, but even then, I was not actually neuroscience. I wasn’t even a life science major!

I got into UCLA Undeclared – Physical Sciences. I was torn between wanting to do chemistry or physics for the physical science side and neuroscience for the life science side. The closer I got to going to college, my interests shifted. I no longer wanted physics, and I was torn strongly between chemistry and neuroscience as majors. It was not long until I (unofficially) officially declared neuroscience as my major. This was what this blog/website was intended to reflect.

Things change.

During my time in FSP, I met some people that introduced me to psychobiology as a major. I had never heard of it. I talked to my New Student Advisor (NSA) and he expressed that psychobiology is another option for those who want neuroscience and psychology traits in their classes (like me). I then met a math tutor that graduated with a neuroscience degree and expressed his regret over not choosing psychobiology as a major. To him, psychobio (for short) was more fun and not as demanding as neuroscience. The next person I found out to be psychobio was one of my Peer Counselors (PC). We talked for a while about the major and what she learned from it. After all this exposure, I decided that I would declare psychobiology…

I went to the Psychology Dept. while I was at FSP, and asked a counselor how much of a difference psychobiology and neuroscience are. To no avail did she help me much, but I didn’t feel it was the right time to dedicate myself to declaring. So, all through Summer, Fall, and Week 8 of Spring Quarter, I was Undeclared – Physical Science following a General Life Science track. I told everyone I was psychobio and eventually I began to believe that I was… except I wasn’t… until yesterday.

I went in to the Psych Dept. one more time and asked to declare Psychobiology. I went through the process of waiting for them to call me in (They give you one of those buzzer things that you get when you got to a restaurant and it buzzes when they call you in). This is a summarized transcript of what happened after I walked in.

Counselor: “Hi! Are you Noah?”
Me: “Yes.”
Counselor: “Okay, great. Follow me!”
Me: *follows*
Counselor: “So do you really want to be switched to Psychobio?”
Me: “Yes, that is the plan.”
Counselor: “Okay, great, because I just switched you.”
Me: *smiles*
Counselor: “Any questions?”
Me: “No.”
Counselor: “Okay bye!”

That, my friends, is counseling done right.

I know this is long, but I really wanted to share with you all my account of becoming a psychobio major. I must say that I did not think that I would be a life science major. I know my dad can account to how many times I switched my “major” when I was growing up, but this major never once crossed my mind.

I always had direction, but now I know my destination.