Class of 2014: Freshman Blog

This is the plan:

Get into Johns Hopkins (CHECK), double major in Mol. Cell. Biology & Neuroscience, and graduate with a combined BS/MS in MCB. Go on to pursue either the Hopkins or Harvard/MIT combined MD/PhD, and ride that wave right into a professorship at an amazing university like Hopkins (or even a second-rate school like Yale or Duke).

It’s a concise plan, is it not? Sure, I’ve drastically oversimplified my dreams and ambitions, but the point remains; I am always focused on what’s ahead.

I’ve always pointed to the future, to MY future, as a justification for the way I live my life.

“Two majors and Varsity Soccer?”, they ask.

“It’ll all be worth it when I’m accepted to Hopkins Med (or when I win that Rhodes Scholarship).”, I reply.

“Six Red Bulls in one night?”, the kindly old Lebanese man at UniMini asks, concerned.

“I have a Neuroscience midterm tomorrow. It will all be worth it when I’m a Professor at Harvard. Someone has to rehabilitate their Biology department.” I reply through a daze of exhaustion.

My mantra, through it all, has been that science demands nothing less than the fervent and unconditional dedication of our entire lives. I believe that’s true, and I’d be lying if I told you that I don’t sit awake some nights in desperation, searching my mind for what Nash called, “a truly original idea”.

But there are times when I feel that if I were to read one more sentence about Delta-Notch Lateral Inhibition or vertebrate neuroembryology, my head would explode. It is then that I have to take a step back and think about how I’ve gotten to where I am now.

So I flash back to Houston, Texas, where I’m sitting in a booth at Whataburger (If you don’t know what that is, and I’m assuming that you don’t, ask me at an open house. It’s a conversation we need to have.). Across from me are my really good friends Allison and Madeline. It’s 12:30am and we’re talking and laughing hysterically about things that don’t matter in any scientific context. Yet, this singular moment matters more to me than all the hours I spend drudging through the stacks of papers to be read, textbooks to be memorized and worksheets to be filled out. Somehow, despite the obligation I feel to bury my head in my studies for the future, this moment of decidedly meaningless enjoyment is given so much more meaning by its very nature. It’s a great feeling just to be happy to be alive.

That was a night I should have been studying and was better off for having not been. See, if you spend your life burying yourself in work, there will come a time when you’ll look up and be unable to see the sky. That is when you should uncover yourself, call a few friends over and blow off your responsibilities.

No, no, wait. That’s not what I mean. What I’m trying to get across is that putting your nose to the grindstone for too long doesn’t end in success; it ends with you losing your nose. Sometimes, we all need a moment to just sit back in a booth and laugh at inside jokes. Sometimes, we just need to sleep.

I can tell you from experience this is true. That night, the one I mentioned before, was extremely important. I had been studying for two years in order to do well on the exam that I would take over the course of the next day. That was the night before my International Baccalaureate Higher Level Biology Examination. I spent it eating the most delicious fast food in the universe and debating whether Darren Criss or Daniel Radcliffe was the superior Harry Potter. I needed that.

The moral of this story is that we all came to Hopkins to work hard. But don’t become to attached to the idea that if you come here, you’ll have to light the candle at both ends just to stay afloat. You can, but you’ll burn out fast.

My recommendation:

Just like you probably do with your schoolwork, devote some time (say Friday and Saturday nights) during which you don’t allow yourself to even think about the work you have to do. Go to a party, go see a movie or go to a 24-hour fast food restaurant with some friends. Whatever you do, enjoy yourself.

Thursday, I had one of those days. I literally threw my Neuroscience notes across my room and shouted, “I QUIT!!!”. So I went to see “The Social Network” and hung out with my friends on the 3^rd floor of Wolman East until I fell asleep on the couch in their common room. I woke up feeling completely prepared to take my Neuroscience midterm. Had I not taken some time for myself, I don’t think I would have done as well.

Oh, and I rocked that IB HL Biology Exam, by the way.

GO HOP!

Howdy y’all!

This is a picture of me that they took for my Men's Soccer team profile on hopkinssports.com.

Now seems like a great time for an introduction. My name is Noah Guiberson, and I am a Freshman here at the Johns Hopkins University. I’m double majoring in Molecular & Cellular Biology and Neuroscience, and I intend to pursue the Master of Science degree in MCB in my fourth or fifth year, depending on how things play out. I plan to go on to earn an M.D./Ph.D. and eventually become a professor (I’d be a great professor. Oh my goodness, let me tell you.). Additionally, I play Goalkeeper for the Men’s Soccer team and am a member of both the Student Athlete Advisory Council and the Student Admissions Advisory Board.

I hail from the great city of Houston, Texas, and before you ask; no, I do not have a Texan accent. I am, however, known to say both “Howdy” and “Y’all” (as you may have already noticed), and to make frequent use of myriad adorable, folksy idioms and metaphors. (Note that I do not claim to be Southern. There is an important distinction between Texas and “The South”. Feel free to discuss it with me at length if you see me at any Admissions events.)

As early as my Sophomore year of high school, I knew that Hopkins was the place for me. It seemed, really, that my Junior and Senior years were just “Hopkins Prep”. I recognize and respect that this realization is rarely as self-evident for others as it was for me, and that it is usually reached as the result of painstaking deliberation and the careful weighing of alternatives, often as late as the night before applications are due. So, I’ll do my very best to describe to you why I’m here, and why I love it so, in the hopes that you’ll understand and make the right choice.

I drove 37 miles in ~22 minutes, directly from a soccer game, in order to be at my friend's graduation. Please note that my attire is made appropriate by the Blue Jay logo.

Succinctly, one of the many reasons that I chose Johns Hopkins is this; that when it comes to Biology and Neuroscience, there is no university in the world as prestigious and as consistently productive as Hopkins has been. I decided that I could suffer through questions like, “What is John Hopkin?” and “Why in the world was this guy named Johns?”, in order to be a part of the most legendary congregation of scientific aptitude in the history of modern medical research.

But let me expand on another: what I call (not succinctly) “the ambient intellectual and familial milieu”.

Let’s start…here:

I’ll tell you what, Texas is a big state. Moreover, Houston is a big city, and at 6’3″, I’m a big guy. Always true to my heritage of grandeur and expanse, I have big dreams, a big heart and, admittedly, a sizable ego.

Where I’m from, in order to stand out, you really do have to be one of the biggest fish in a pond of considerable volume. But every student at Hopkins was the cream of the crop from which they were harvested; everyone here is remarkable by all measurable and intangible considerations.

That’s part of the allure of this place. Homewood is, through both day and night, abuzz with the informal exchange of big ideas, marked by their profundity and great insight. This from freshmen, individuals only marginally more advanced in years than is what I imagine is the majority of the Hopkins Interactive readership. These are great minds, congregated in a secular sanctuary of academic excellence. This campus brings it out of them. If you ever get to be a part of our community, you’ll be shocked at how quickly your understanding of highly complex concepts will develop. You may have never thought yourself a paragon of erudition. But when your peers expect it of you and, by their expectation and companionship, help you achieve it, the barrier between you and your starry-eyed aspirations falls away at the lightest touch.

So here I am, and despite the aforementioned magnitude of my sense of self-worth, I am humbled. To attend the Johns Hopkins University is a gift that we newly anointed Blue Jays do not take lightly.

Me and my SAABuddies!

There is something wonderful here. It takes the form of a spirit about campus too great and too extreme to be expressed in words, but as true and corporeal as both you and I. Its body is that of the students; its heart is in their drive to succeed, their desire to learn and their penchant for enjoying themselves (In future posts, I will expand on this. Be patient!). I guarantee you, when you experience it for the first time, you’ll miss it every time you’re away.

Part of my job is to relay to you in words what it’s like to be a Freshman at Johns Hopkins. My job is made difficult, though, by the ineffable, wondrous and matchless nature of our experiences here. But I promise to do everything I can, over this next year and the three afterward, to most accurately portray what it’s like to have made the best decision I have ever had to make.

I am happy beyond belief to be here. I love Texas, and Houston will always be my hometown, but Hopkins is my new Home(wood). Mi casa es su casa, so come on in and have a seat. We’re going to have a blast.

Until next time,

Noah G.