My name is Rachel Larsen and I am a member of the graduating class of 2018 at Indiana University-Purdue University of Indianapolis (IUPUI). I am a direct admit to the Purdue School of Science, as well as an avid member of the Honors College, majoring in neuroscience with minors in biology and psychology.

Why Neuroscience?

Passion is one of the most fascinating aspects of the human mind. I am passionate about classical music, specifically opera performance. I am passionate for my school and my fellow science majors. I love to listen to others' passions, watching them light up in response to the mention of their favorite sport, book, activity, or movie. Passion is why I decided to delve into neuroscience. Its such an exceptional idea that my brain and yours are able to read these sentences with inflection and meaning, but the connotation may be something different to you than to me. I am terrible at history, but my best friend can remember "who accomplished what on this date" for the last millenium. The organ that allows me to walk, talk, think, and feel is (mostly) the same as the girl next to me, yet we are completely different people with entirely different likes and dislikes. And the further I explored, the more I fell in love. I realized my overwhelming intrigue at the biology of the brain, looking into how the structure and chemical interactions can pinpoint how we react to stimuli, was a pull that I could never (and would never want) to escape. Just as interesting is trying to understand how much of this is predisposed, from family history for example, and how much is determined during our life, such as how the age of skill acquisition affects the level of success possible and ease of learning said skill. My questions got more and more complex and I just knew that if I didn't work to find them to the best of my ability, I would surely explode.