Thread: Hi! Advice Please? Neuroscience Guidance?

Hi, I'm Jason

Just decided to take the leap into the Cognitive Neuroscience arena and I'm currently a sophomore in college and not exactly sure how to go about getting my degree. ANY input or advice is greatly appreciated! I'm sure one of you has been in my predicament before. I understand the process is somewhat personal to everyone depending on interest and what have you. I am entirely looking for personal experiences and opinions though so share openly. What did you do and what do you study? What do you recommend? If you can answer ANY of these questions I'd appreciate it.

1.) Do you recommend going the MD route or just getting a PhD? (I want to do research and development on consciousness/awareness and brain function) <--- That's our entire existence! How can that not be the most interesting thing in the world?

2.) I'm not sure what would be an appropriate bachelor degree and masters degree (obviously psychology and cognitive neuroscience are fitting) but looking back what would you recommend? If I get a bachelors degree in Cognitive Neuroscience can I start working in the field immediately or are jobs very limited?

3.) Was this field pretty much exactly as you anticipated? Any regrets? Anything you expected to be doing and realized that's not really typical?

4.) Was it difficult to find a job in the field you were looking for? Would you do it all over? Was the salary as expected? ( I don't particularly care about salary as long as it can put a roof over my head, but its nice to know)

I have a million more questions but these are the one's that come to mind. I can most definitely google the answers but they mean much more coming from an individual who has experienced this journey. I really hope someone replies to this, I'm sorry if my questions are long and scare you away but don't feel the need to leave a paragraph long reply if you don't want to (although I would be more than happy to see that) even just a sentence is helpful. Thank you once again and I look forward to hearing from you!

Hello friends,

I would like to say, Several families of extracellular guidance cues have been implicated in guiding neurons and axons to their appropriate destinations in the nervous system. Their receptors include single- and seven-trans-membrane receptors, and their signal transduction pathways converge onto the Rho family of small GTPases, which control the cytoskeleton. A single guidance protein can use different mechanisms to regulate different kinds of motility or the motilities of different cell types. There is crosstalk between the signalling pathways initiated by distinct guidance cues. Studies of neuronal guidance mechanisms have shed light not only on neural development, but also on other processes that involve the extracellular regulation of the cytoskeleton.

Thanks
Stephen Jones