So people are graduating high school/college and I thought it would be a good idea to compile a list of solid interview tips so you’re not only surviving on that MSG Ramen diet.
1.) Research: Know at least a little about what position you are applying for. Sounds obvious, I know. But I mean about the company or organization itself. You’re applying at Subway? Know a little bit about the company’s history or what a Sandwich Artist is. Applying at a store? Know that clientele that frequent the store, etc. Applying for a desk position at a college? “I was amazed at the new addition to the library and the dedication to student life and improvement just stood out to me that this is a university driven towards student success and something I would be proud to be a part of and strive for.” It’s like giving the hiring manager a high-five. Says why you chose them. Make them feel desirable in interesting to you.
2.) How to dress: When it doubt, always overdress. Nobody is gonna not hire you because you wore a nice suit to a gas station cashier interview. You’ll be taken more seriously than the khaki shorts and white t-shirt you were wearing to that cookout yesterday. Not sure what colors to look for? Black is your safest bet. Black and white are neutral if you have absolutely no clue. Pro tip: If you listened to number one and know the color of the uniform, try and incorporate that into you clothing selection because it helps hiring managers to see you like their co-workers. (e.g., If you’re applying at a hospital where the unit wears, say, maroon scrubs, try wearing a maroon top or tie.)
3. Behavioral Questions: It’s inevitable. Most jobs are going to give you a series of behavioral questions to gauge you as a person. It is what will divide you from other candidates. What’s a behavioral question? Here’s some examples: “Name a time when you provided exceptional customer service”, “Describe an instance when you had to resolve a problem/confront a coworker/maintain professionalism”, etc. Come PREPARED to name instances. Have about 3-5 in mind and get ready to tweak any of them to fit the frame of the question. Practice speaking in the mirror, to a friend, record yourself etc. But practice saying it out loud because you don’t want to stumble. (InterviewStream is a helpful website!) Answer completely! Explain how your response fits the mold through the story. Tell how you felt at the time and the outcome of what happened. It’s to figure out you as a person. (e.g. “I did ___ for a customer/client/patient/whatever. They were having suchandsuch issue and while what I did was so mundane, it really made their day. It was something that comes so naturally to me that I didn’t realize the impact it would make and it felt good to provide a service that wasn’t simply a run-of-the-mill thing we normally did working for ___). You feel me?
4. Critical Thinking Questions: Some jobs may present you with critical thinking questions the require pause for thought. An example for if you were, say, a nurse: “You have four patients. One with pyelonephritis and no signs of infection, one with a fractured femur with no pain, one with a fractured hip and leg who is leaving tomorrow, and one with diabetes mellitus and an open wound ulcer. A PCA tells you the the fractured hip patient has a blood pressure of 90/60 but says she feels fine, the charge nurse informs you that your pyelonephritis patient is having difficulty breathing and is sat at 89%, another PCA tells you your DM patient is difficult to arouse, and your fractured femur patient is screaming that he is rating his pain a 9/10 and is disturbing other patients. What do you do, who is your priority, and what is your plan of care?” A tad overwhelming. The interviewer is looking at you, you’re processing your options, there’s a lot going on. Take a breath. It’s OKAY TO ASK FOR A MINUTE TO THINK. IT’S NOT A TIMED EXAM! Voice your thoughts! Give complete responses. Even if saying “I would take vitals” sounds OBVIOUS, still say it. Go through your thoughts out loud because you may forget something that speaking it aloud could help. “I would take vitals” would lead to “I would perform an assessment” to “by listening to her lungs and taking his glucose” etc.
5. Body Language: Be open! Have your body turned towards your interviewer, look him/her in the eyes when you respond to a question, smile, nod, do not interrupt, sit up straight, know what you’re doing with your hands and feet (e.g. if you’re a chronic knuckle-cracker/hand rubber, fidgeter, etc.). Body language is one of the most helpful ways an interviewer can gauge your interest.
6. Strengths and Weaknesses: Strengths are easy. Everyone can come up with a good strength (Flexible, self-starter, love constructive criticism, love to learn, great team worker, etc.). Weaknesses though? Weaknesses are tricky. Rule number one: DON’T BE THAT DOUCHE THAT SAYS SOMETHING TO THE EFFECT OF “I work too hard” because nobody is impressed. But don’t also say something like “I am not a morning person” because what if they need you for mornings? No. Find a sweet-spot. Find a weakness that can be improved and isn’t a mere personality trait. Explain the weakness and how you have worked to improve it in the past and what has been effective. (e.g. I have issues with time-management. I have learned to get tasks done as soon as they are delegated to me rather than putting them off. or I have learned to prioritize which tasks will be the most time-consuming and which can be handled quicker so that all of the tasks get effectively completed.)
7. “What are your long-term goals/how long do you plan on staying here/where do you see yourself in x years”: Ah. Do I confess to McDonald’s that I have no intention on making a career out of this and that I only want to work here for the summer and risk not getting the job? Hell no. Don’t lie but don’t be completely truthful either. Keep it open-ended. If you intend on using this job for a bit of cash, have something else in mind as your end-game, or plan on using this job as a stepping-stone, that’s just fine. But don’t go on record as saying something like “Oh I intend on working here for a few years” because you know you’re lying. Say something to the tune of “For as long as I can/am able”. Be creative in your phrasing. Unless they ask you to specifically name an amount of time, variations of that response tend to work. Important thing to note is WATCH WHAT YOU SAY HERE. If you want to go far in the company, say that you want to pursue leadership opportunities and such. Do NOT say “I don’t want to just be a ____” because that is condescending and rude.
7. “Do you have any questions for me?”: ALWAYS. HAVE. QUESTIONS. Always have them! Even if it is something that you already know about, ask. Here are some go-to questions I have for interviews “Are there any leadership opportunities available?” “How long is orientation?” “Are there more ways for me to become involved or any committees I can join?” Having questions shows INTEREST.
Feel free to add more tips, people!
I’m never over the fact that Juliet, though sunshiney, loving and in many ways naive, is actually a ridiculously morbid and very calculating person. I love her for it, honestly, and I hate when people cut those lines or play it as though she isn’t these things.
Like, my love for Juliet Capulet knows no bounds as it is–she’s defiant, she’s passionate, she’s nonviolent, she’s loving, and basically the coolest. But I feel like the fact that she’s kind of a manipulative genius at times, and a somewhat creepy Gothic romantic at others is so often overlooked, and I can’t imagine why, because that’s great!
I mean, it’s clear how intelligent she is, and how easily she manages to say what her parents want to hear, without even once letting on what she’s really saying, as the audience knows, most notable in Act III, Scene VL
Indeed, I never shall be satisfied With Romeo, till I behold him—dead— Is my poor heart for a kinsman vexed.
Where she basically knows how to simultaneously say that she’s grieving both for the loss of Tybalt and Romeo, while letting her mother hear that she wants Romeo dead, and then later in the same scene:
I pray you, tell my lord and father, madam ,I will not marry yet. And when I do, I swear It shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate, Rather than Paris. These are news indeed!
Where she manages to basically throw it all out on the table–she’d rather marry Romeo than Paris–and still words it just so they have no idea. This is an extremely subtle and deft crafting of word and communication and how people hear things. The girl is basically a genius and could probably have made a terrifyingly good con artist if she wanted.
But then I also love the fact that lots of her other lines are oddly morbid, and that she clearly loves and enjoys darker things, and isn’t quite the wilting, delicate flower people seem to portray her as. I mean, one need mostly just look at her speech in Act III, Scene II, which I’ll do here, and then it becomes a wonder no one modernizes R&J and makes her an adorable Gothic princess, in a way.
Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds, Towards Phoebus’ lodging: such a wagoner As Phaethon would whip you to the west, And bring in cloudy night immediately. Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night, That runaway’s eyes may wink and Romeo Leap to these arms, untalk’d of and unseen.
This part isn’t terribly dark, but it’s got the feeling of a battle cry, in a way, invoking horses of the gods to go away, commanding the sun to set. It’s intense stuff.
Lovers can see to do their amorous rites By their own beauties; or, if love be blind, It best agrees with night. Come, civil night, Thou sober-suited matron, all in black, And learn me how to lose a winning match, Play’d for a pair of stainless maidenhoods:
To me, at least, there’s something witchy about this: it reminds me, in a way, of Lady Macbeth’s “Come, thick night,” speech, where she’s powerful, literally calling evil spirits to do her bidding and change the course of what’s to be done. Obviously, Juliet isn’t a witch and no spirits come to her aid, but the thought is there, as is her love for darkness, her disdain for light, her romanticization of the night and its cover and the color black. It makes me want to picture a modern Juliet painting spider-webs on her fingernails and watching the starts for hours in the dark, and listening to The Cure.
Hood my unmann’d blood, bating in my cheeks, With thy black mantle; till strange love, grown bold, Think true love acted simple modesty. Come, night; come, Romeo; come, thou day in night; For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night Whiter than new snow on a raven’s back.
Again, this is something she very clearly loves and thinks is gorgeous, and it’s morbid and dark and rich. And yet she’s so constantly written off as this silly little girl, foolish and flowery in the way people read her or perform her.
Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow’d night, Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die, Take him and cut him out in little stars,
Honestly, just to drive the point home, she’s thinking about her lover’s death making him scatter into the stars and literally becoming part of the night. She wants to be Night’s lover, in an indirect kind of ways, and the fact that she twines darkness with Romeo in this image, indicates that she associates love and things she adores with darkness. It’s certainly a love for the dark that I’d put into a Gothic Heroine of later literature.
And he will make the face of heaven so fine That all the world will be in love with night And pay no worship to the garish sun.
And finally, she concludes with calling the sun “garish,” which, if anything, makes me think of a line in a song from Phantom of the Opera–”Turn your face away/ from the Garish light of day”–which also associates romance with darkness, and a contempt for light. But this isn’t meant to make her bad or wrong, simply private and rich and dark.
So basically, this all boils down to two things: One is that Juliet Capulet should not be written off as stupid because she is literally too clever for anyone else. The other is that I don’t get why people portray her wearing all white, or bright colors so often in modern adaptations, because there’s literally text-based justification for goth!Juliet if you wanted.
TL;DR Juliet Capulet is my cunning Goth Daughter who I love to hell and back and would kill someone for and I hate that people do not like her or put a lot of thought into her. Also, if you’re ever thinking on it, consider goth!Juliet who loves spooky things and sneaking out at night. It could go very well with pastel!Romeo.
My first year at university came to a close and here are some important things I learned along the way that really helped me succeed throughout the year (but most importantly survive to the end)
A common thing students do for the first few weeks of classes is try to convince themselves that they don’t have anything to do because it seems like they haven’t learned enough material. The moment you learn something on day 1, you have something to review or catch up on. If not, try to get ahead a little. I promise that staying on top of your work from day 1 is how you can help prevent midterms from sneaking up on you.
This goes with #1 because scheduling, planning, lists, etc. are how you can stay on top of things. Simple to-do lists or, for those of you that like more specific planning, hourly planners work great. Being specific about when you’re going to do something and what it is you’re going to do (i.e. study lectures 11-13) really helps to organize your brain and your studying. Also, part of managing your time is not committing to too many things at once. You may still be trying to figure things out and the last thing you want is to be dealing with more than you can handle.
It’s so hard to dedicate your time to classes that aren’t the ones with exams coming up, but falling behind on those other classes won’t help you in the long term. University is a total balancing act and you need to be able to balance keeping yourself up to date with courses as well as reviewing for any upcoming exams, projects, papers, etc. A lot of people (including me sometimes) fall behind on every class because of midterms and then spend all their time up until finals playing catch up rather than thoroughly preparing for finals.
We all know this isn’t the way to go, but we do it anyway. You can’t study for a class effectively in 2-3 days. Give yourself a week or two to go over the material more than once. I always try to schedule small chunks of studying - a few pages a day that can take up to an hour or two of my time - at least 2 weeks in advance so that I start preparing, but I also am not taking too much time away from keeping up with current classes (see #3). And no all-nighters! Sleep plays a role in consolidating material, so skipping sleep is not the way to go.
Don’t pick a class because you heard it was easy and don’t avoid a class because you heard it was hard. The same goes for professors. Opinions on courses are subjective (obviously) and everyone experiences courses differently; a class that was a breeze for someone else might not be for you. Don’t take course reviews too seriously. Rely more on how you feel about the overall course material because you’re more likely to try hard and succeed in a course you’re genuinely interested in, even if it’s more difficult than other courses.
You are a human and being a student is not your only purpose in life. Eat properly, stay hydrated, keep active, and sleep well are the popular pieces of advice. Make sure you’re listening to your body and paying attention to your mental health. There is absolutely nothing wrong with taking time for you when you need it, whether it’s an hour, a day, or a few days. You don’t have to push yourself to extremes or burn yourself out to feel like you’ve done the best that you could. The breaks you give yourself will be the reason you make it through to the end.
Reminder: It’s possible that your first year doesn’t go well and if it doesn’t, know that it isn’t the end and you can come back from it. First year can be really difficult for some people and it can be a breeze for others. Don’t get discouraged because it’s only the first year and you have many great ones to come later!
Ok so I want to tell you guys about this project I found out about called Givling! It’s basically a trivia game website that benefits people with student loans!
The way it works is people make an account for free which secures their spot in the list of people involved in the site. Then people pay 50 cents a game to play. If you have federal student loans and you’re next on the list then you provide them with proof of your loans and they start raising money from all the people playing to pay off your loans. Once your loans are paid off then they go to the next person in line. If you don’t have loans then you can sell your spot in line or give it away. So far it looks like this is legit and it’s really exciting! They haven’t been around long so they just recently paid off the loan of the first person on the list and are a third of the way through the second person on the list. The also do daily money giveaways of much smaller amounts as extra incentive for people to play the game and help raise loan paying funds!
Please check this out and play if you want and do your own research if you are worried about the legitimacy of this project! Below is the link to the website, the group’s facebook page, and a few articles I found about it. So far I haven’t found anything bad about it and everything points to it being legit so please support or promote if you can!
Givling site:
https://givling.com/givling/
Givling facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/Givling?fref=ts
Articles about Givling:
http://www.wired.com/2015/03/online-game-thatll-help-pay-off-student-debt/
http://college.usatoday.com/tag/givling/
http://www.businessinsider.com/online-gamers-are-helping-people-pay-off-their-student-debt-2015-7
http://www.psfk.com/2015/03/givling-gamifying-paying-off-student-loans-paying-college-debt.html
Challenge yourself. College is scary and intimidating, but it can also be the best time of your life. It’s merely depends on your choices. You can chose to stand on the sidelines and stay the same person you were in high school, or you can open yourself up to new experiences and dive into everything college has to offer. College is the time to learn more about yourself and have fun while doing that. And it does not happen within the confines of your comfort zone. Do something you never thought you would. Sign up for trips. Dare to be different. Explore yourself. Challenge others. Challenge yourself.
Sponsored Zag MacKenzie Allan (’17)
I know from personal experience that sometimes sitting down to study sometimes means just staring blankly at a screen or notebook for a few minutes before ‘giving up’ and logging onto tumblr or facebook instead. I’ve been asked a few times about how to avoid wasting time and studying effectively, so here’s what my advice would be:
Something that is only just starting to be understood by schools is that people learn in different ways. Just because you struggle to take in information when it’s written down in front of you, it doesn’t mean you’re ‘stupid’ or bad at revising. It’s important that you find out what methods work for you, because you might be any one of these learners, or a mixture of a few!:
Visual Learners
If you’re quite a fast talker, or you get impatient during your revision, you might find that you are a visual learner. This means you take in information by looking at it and visualising what it is. Ways that you can revise that will encourage your visual learner traits would be:
Present your information with colourful charts and graphs.
Use flashcards with pictures to learn vocabulary.
Create powerpoint presentations with animation to explain key topics.
Watch educational Youtube videos.
Auditory Learners
If you’re a natural listener in conversations and find it easier to have things explained to you verbally, then you might be an auditory learner. This means that it’s easier for you to take information in by listening to it. Ways that you can revise that will encourage your auditory learner traits would be:
Record yourself saying your notes and listen back to them.
Listen to educational Youtube videos or podcasts.
Learn songs or poems in your target languages.
Read-Write Learners:
If you enjoy reading and writing in all forms then you’re likely to be a read-write learner. This means you work well when interacting with a text. Ways that you can revise that will encourage your read-write learner traits would be:
Take part in written tests that you make yourself or past papers.
Summarise notes from a textbook.
Create your own handouts based on youtube videos or textbook chapters.
Kinesthetic Learners
If you prefer the more hands-on approach to learning, then you might be a kinesthetic learner. You learn best by doing the task at hand and practising! Ways that you can revise that will encourage your kinesthetic learner traits would be:
Roleplaying or doing mock walkthroughs of tasks.
Practising your languages by interacting with other speakers.
Memory games and interactive ways of learning work well.
BBC Key Skills has a test that you can take to help you work out what type of learner that you are!
Avoid distractions
A proper revision session is rarely done with the TV blaring in the background or twitter open on another tab. So I would suggest trying applications like the StayFocused Chrome Extension if you can’t be trusted to stay on task when revising. I know that lots of people can’t stand silence, so try classical music or music from video games on a low volume in the background if you want to avoid being caught up in the lyrics. Get that phone on silent or airplane mode!
Don’t overwork yourself
There’s very little point in sitting for hours and hours revising. You’re not going to take everything in and you’ll be very bored in the process. Tackle a few tasks, then take a break before revisiting them to ensure that they’ve stuck in your head. ‘Take regular breaks’ is a mantra I find myself repeating a lot.
Have fun!
The best encouragement for studying is by doing it in a way that you enjoy. If you’re arty, make your own posters or infographics that clearly display your topics. If you work well by interacting with others then organise a study group with some of your friends. Resources like educational youtube videos or memory games are perfect for keeping revision lighthearted.
1. Have a realistic plan for your day. Don’t just work on impulse, and don’t do try to do more than you can handle.
2. Prioritize your work, and do the most important things first
3. Know what your distractions are, and take steps to control them (for example, switch off your phone)
4. Start early, and keep on going, even when you feel discouraged or fed up
5. Know what’s irrelevant, and don’t waste your time on unproductive, or pointless things
6. Switch between focused work and lots of short breaks
7. Be flexible if you meet with obstacles, or things don’t turn out the way you’d planned.
An email I got this morning from the government regarding my student loans:
We recalculated your monthly payment for your Income-Based Repayment (IBR) plan. We used the income documentation […] to determine your monthly payment of $334.66 [….] If you do not recertify or you no longer have a partial financial hardship (PFH), your payment amount will be $641.77.
The power of Income-Based Repayment plans for student loans: I am literally paying half what my monthly payment would be if I didn’t have “income based” forbearance.
The downside of course is that it would take me well over twice the length of time to pay off my loans (given the payment size plus interest), but I am enrolled in Public Service Loan Forgiveness, which means if I am employed with a not-for-profit for another four years, to make ten years total, the balance of my loans, roughly $30K, will be forgiven.
Furthermore, I believe (qualifier: this may no longer be true, I haven’t checked recently) if you are enrolled in IBR and paying based on income, after 25 years your loans will be forgiven regardless of where you work. If you are unemployed, IBR can reduce your loan payments to zero even once you’ve used up your grace period. If you are long-term unemployed, that means in 25 years you will no longer carry student loan debt.
It’s 25 years of payments instead of 10, but it’s better than no help at all.
If you are in a low-earning job (I make just over $50K per year which in Chicago does not go far), IBR can help you keep your head above water and build savings by not charging you through the nose for your loan repayments. IBR is making it possible for me to afford to buy a home.
If you are employed with a charity, public school, private not-for-profit school, government agency, or other 501( c)(3) organization, you also qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness, which means after ten years of payments all of your qualifying loans will be forgiven.
A few years ago I wrote up how to apply for IBR and PSLF here. I just went through and updated all the links; it should be a good primer on the kinds of loans and jobs that the setup involves.
Here is a picture of the nine-dot problem. The task seems simple enough: connect all nine dots with four straight lines, but, do so without lifting the pen from the paper or retracing any line. If you don’t already know the solution, give it a try – although your chances of figuring it out within a few minutes hover around 0 percent. In fact, even if I were to give you a hint like “think outside of the box,” you are unlikely to crack this deceptively (and annoyingly!) simple puzzle.
The Nine Dot problem: connect the dots by making four lines, without lifting your pencil from the paper
And yet, if we were to pass a weak electric current through your brain (specifically your anterior temporal lobe, which sits somewhere between the top of your ear and temple), your chances of solving it may increase substantially. That, at least, was the finding from a study where 40 percent of people who couldn’t initially solve this problem managed to crack it after 10 minutes of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) – a technique for delivering a painlessly weak electric current to the brain through electrodes on the scalp.
How to explain this?
It is an instance of the alleged power of tDCS and similar neurostimulation techniques. These are increasingly touted as methods that can “overclock” the brain in order to boost cognition, improve our moods, make us stronger, and even alter our moral dispositions. The claims are not completely unfounded: there is evidence that some people become slightly better at holding and manipulating information in their minds after a bout of tDCS. It also appears to reduce some people’s likelihood of formulating false memories, and seems to have a lasting improvement on some people’s ability to work with numbers. It can even appear to boost creativity, enhancing the ability of some to make abstract connections between words to come up with creative analogies. But it goes further, with some evidence that it can help people control their urges as well improve their mood. And beyond these psychological effects, tDCS of the part of the brain responsible for movement seems to improve muscular endurance and reduce fatigue.
It’s an impressive arsenal of findings, and it raises the obvious question: should we all start zapping away at our brains? That certainly seems to be the conclusion reached by the growing DIY community experimenting with home-made tDCS headsets.
But, while the list of supportive studies is far longer than those linked to here, the overall state of the evidence nevertheless continues to occupy that frustrating scientific limbo of being ultimately ambiguous – especially when we take into account all those comparatively boring, non-headline grabbing studies that found no significant effect from tDCS. In fact, a meta-analysis of tDCS studies – one of those laborious studies that study the findings of other studies – found the technique had no effect at all on a wide range of cognitive abilities. Yet that review in turn has been criticized as being too conservative and potentially biased in its own analysis.
More to the point, few of these studies have yet to be replicated, and most of them rely on a handful of unrepresentative people (US undergrads) who are asked to undertake the kind of lab-controlled tasks that usually share a questionable (at best) relationship with real world activities. And as for the long-term effects of tDCS use, or even how it affects brain function exactly? It’s not clear.
Yet none of this haziness has deterred start-ups from developing a slew of commercial tDCS headsets targeting home-users. Primary among those is Foc.us, which started off with a headset that allegedly enhances gaming ability before expanding to ones that improve learning speed as well as athletic endurance. There’s also Thync, a mood-enhancing headset that’s been described as a “digital drug” that can help users “energize or relax without drinks or pills.” While not quite based on tDCS, it uses pulses of electricity to target cranial nerves just under the skin to supposedly induce various moods.
Another such start-up, Halo Neuroscience, recently introduced its own headset, which stimulates motor neurons in a way that supposedly accelerates the strength gains and skill acquisition of athletes.
The firm reports on its own unpublished “preliminary results” with elite Olympic ski jumpers showing a 31 percent improvement in their propulsion force, with significantly less wobble when airborne. Even if a far more modest result than 31 percent turned out to be true, these sorts of findings could mean that tDCS is set to become a significant performance enhancer in the sporting world. Will its use in competitive settings be considered cheating?
In academic contexts, some universities are already trying to curb the off-label use of prescription drugs to enhance academic performance, with Duke University explicitly considering such use as “cheating.” Similarly, the Electronic Sports League, which holds massive gaming tournaments with million dollar prize pools, has started randomly testing players for so-called “smart drugs” that may give e-athletes an edge over their non-doping opponents.
Would using Foc.us’s GoFlow to “learn faster” be considered a similar instance of academic dishonesty by Duke University? Or what about using Foc.us’s gaming headset in the context of shooting down virtual enemies? If these devices give any sort of a boost, it’s not clear why their use should be considered any different from drugs like Adderall or Ritalin, at least in regards to cheating.
In non-virtual sport, the World Anti-doping Agency (WADA) prohibits substances and methods when they satisfy any two of these three criteria: 1. they confer a performance enhancement; 2. they pose an actual or potential risk for athletes; and 3. they violate the “spirit of sport.”
If the preliminary findings from Halo Neuroscience on ski jumping are even remotely valid, the first criterion would certainly be met. On the other hand, it’s not yet clear if tDCS poses a noteworthy potential risk for athletes – though any such risk would almost certainly be smaller than the one involved in soaring over 100 meters through the air, as in the case of ski jumping. But does it violate the difficult to define “spirit of sport”? It’s a question that WADA may wish to avoid: to answer yes may commit it to trying to ban the unbannable. As far as we can tell, tDCS leaves no uniquely detectable impact in the brain: a ban would not be enforceable.
On the other hand, tDCS may simply be construed as not “artificial” enough to threaten our (often arbitrary) notions of fairness, whether in sports or academic settings. Unlike injecting or ingesting a synthetic drug, many may have the intuition that a weak electric current is comparatively “natural” or “clean.” For instance, even though the effects are similar, WADA currently tolerates athletes who increase their red blood cells (and therefore, presumably, their performance) by sleeping in a tent that simulates high altitude, but not those who do so by blood doping or EPO. Something about sleeping in a tent to enhance performance does not strike us as suspect in the way that drugs or blood transfusions do. Perhaps tDCS will be occupy the same corner as altitude tents: for the rule makers, both can be convenient inconsistencies in the rules, as both elude detection anyway.
An yet, while we can question the evidence for the actual efficacy of most performance enhancers currently used, tDCS in particular stands out in calling for more data. Unlike Adderall or anabolic steroids, at the moment anyone can get their hands on a tDCS headset by legally ordering one online. And even if these headsets become more closely regulated, people can still cheaply make their own using common items found at electronics stores, stimulating any part of their brain, or their children’s. Given the current hype around it, it would be good to know more about how exactly it impacts the brain — and the long term consequences.
Top Image: These are increasingly touted as methods that can “overclock” the brain in order to boost cognition, improve our moods, make us stronger, and even alter our moral dispositions. Credit: Fabrice Coffini/GettyImages
Source: Scientific American (By Hazem Zohny)
“I would love, love, love to play Hamlet,” said James Norton, who was plucked from the Cambridge student body for Trevor Nunn’s production of “Cymbeline” nine years ago and is melting hearts as a jazz-loving vicar in PBS’ “Grantchester.” “But I’m already a bit too old.”
The 30-year-old Norton may think the role has passed him by — although maturity didn’t stop Mel Gibson from doing a 1990 film version at the creaky age of 34 — but there are plenty of other choices in his future.
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