Neuroscience Undergraduate Society
University of California - Los Angeles
NUS Neural Network
Neural Network
The NUS Neural Network is a resource for students looking for insight and guidance from the career paths of past members. This is meant to help inspire you to think broadly about your future. We sincerely appreciate all of the members who contributed information to make this possible.
Jonathan Acosta
College Major: Neuroscience
Graduation Year: 2016
Did you attend graduate school? Yes
If yes, where and for what? I'm currently attending the Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia and pursuing my M.D.
What is your current career or occupation? Medical Student
How has your major helped you in this career? My neuroscience degree and experience at UCLA have made my transition into medical school much easier than that of my counterparts. There is an anticipated baseline of knowledge upon which we are taught in school, and the background in neuroscience has given me an incredible advantage. It allows me to focus more time on the other new subject material, and I have definitely benefited from the degree.
What led you to be in the field you are in now? The M.D. degree is one of the most versatile in the world. It positions you in the world within a market where concerns of volatility are quite minimal when compared to others. My goal in medicine is to obtain my MBA and work in the development/implementation of artificially bioengineered tissues for muscle and ligament repair. My overall reason to pursue a career in this field is to actually make an impact in the world, while ensuring that I can still adequately provide for my family. For me personally, medicine satisfies both of those main requirements, and I am looking forward to a long career in this field.
Do you have any other advice or tips for success? My main tip for success is to always choose to do things that are personally valuable to you. So many times at UCLA you will hear about students doing all sorts of clubs and activities simply to pad a resume. As you move forward, you'll see that these just simply become words on a paper. While at UCLA, take advantage of the incredible faculty and resources to begin developing skills. Whether your goal is graduate school or moving into industry, the most valuable assets that applicants bring to the table are skills. When you graduate, you should be able to say that you've learned not only the information, but how to translate that knowledge into skills that make you a valuable asset to the world. I guarantee that as long as you choose to learn and work in areas that actually valuable to you, you will always benefit in the long run.
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Jonathan graciously allowed us to give you his email, so if you are interested in talking with him you can contact him at jracosta79@ucla.edu
Anonymous Member
College Major: Neuroscience
Graduation Year: 2015
Did you attend graduate school (or do you have plans for graduate school)? I am currently in the NIH Postbaccalaureate IRTA program, which prepares many recent college graduates to go on to graduate/professional schools or other positions in industry, etc., if so desired. I am applying to professional school (medical).
If yes, where and for what?What is your current career or occupation? Research Fellow
How has your major helped you in this career? To be frank, the neuroscience core classes taught me my memory isn't as good as I'd like to think it is -- which helped me develop ways to study in spaced repetition, rather than cramming. UCLA can be a competitive environment, and this humbled me enough to refine my strategies for learning and memory recall, which better prepared me for a rigorous academic experience beyond college.
What led you to be in the field you are in now? (Current field: basic science research of cellular signalling and membrane trafficking.) A combination of luck and personal fit. Luck because my application/resume was seen by the right person at the right time. Personal fit because I was looking for a job with a lot of learning potential, where I could grow personally and professionally, and I also carefully looked for a healthy work culture and group of people I could be happy spending my working days with. I stuck with science because I wanted to learn how to ask interesting research questions and work with cutting-edge technologies to resolve those kinds of problems.
The invaluable connections I built with people during my time at UCLA played an integral part in my interest, as well.
Do you have any other advice or tips for success? Seeing as how those reading this are most likely to be a Bruin, and Bruins are pretty successful and high-achieving already, this advice may already be moot. But I'll provide it anyway, on the off-chance it may help someone:
1. Motivation - I'll never forget Professor Glanzman telling my class the key to learning and memory is motivation, and not just innate intelligence. Motivation is what drives an average person to do extraordinary things, like start their day just a little bit earlier or go the extra mile for someone else. I worked in a clinic after graduation and I saw what all my successful coworkers had in common was motivation--the reason why they came in every day to do a good job. Motivation is what keeps me persisting to pursue what I believe in even when people tell me "No" or "You're not 'x' enough." Being motivated to do better on tests forced me to scrap unhelpful study habits and develop new ones (recording lecture while taking notes and paying attention, replaying lectures at home and adding to notes, then testing my memory and rewriting hard-to-remember names from scratch until I wouldn't get it wrong). Knowing what motivates you can be a very powerful tool for personal success.
2. Be part of something that shares your values, or has a mission you believe in. - I think when people feel important or feel they are part of something important, they are much more content. Making the transition from college to "the real world" can be quite an adjustment. So finding an organization or activity that reflects one's values can help a person maintain a strong sense of identity and foot the transition and stresses of daily life more easily.
3. Engage in activities that heighten your sense of self-autonomy and control. - Someone I look up to once told me, "No matter how bad I am feeling, there is something to be said about getting up and doing something for myself, whatever it may be."
4. Stick with critical/deep thinking. - I think the recent upsurge in popularity in mindfulness has shown that people crave deeper meaning, and making meaningful decisions that improve the quality of their own lives. At the very least, being able to show your ability to think critically impresses the baloney out of people.
5. Ask for help when you need it. - Successes of interdisciplinary fields like neuroscience have stemmed from people simply asking each other for help.
6. Trust your instinct. - If there was one thing I could go back and tell my younger self, this would be it. If something seems fishy, there is *probably* a reason for it. If something seems right to you, then listen to that too!
Denise Allen
College Major: Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology
Graduation Year: 2017
Did you attend graduate school (or do you have plans for graduate school)? Yes
If yes, where and for what? I am about to finish my first year in UCSF's Biomedical Sciences PhD program.
What is your current career or occupation? Graduate student
How has your major helped you in this career? I majored in MCDB but I look NS 101A, 101B, and audited neuroanatomy in order to get the best of both worlds: an education in the basics of molecular biology as well as neuroscience.
This combination has given me a unique advantage in graduate school because I am conversant in molecular biology, development, and the nervous system--a very unique combination that has been critical to my success in the class room and the lab. I may not remember all of the exact details I was tested on in my undergraduate classes, but just having been exposed to the basic concepts of all these three fields has been critical to my success.
What led you to be in the field you are in now? I was lucky enough to work in a research lab during two summers in high school, and I thought it was the coolest thing. You get to work, think, and talk with brilliant people and have the opportunity to discover something entirely new every day. I continued to have great lab experiences during undergrad and so enjoyed my basic sciences courses that I decided to attend graduate school. Graduate school is great because you get to continue your education in the sciences, minus the long lectures and pointless tests. Instead you get to take charge of your own education and really dive into what you are most interested in.
Do you have any other advice or tips for success? Don't just take the easiest classes. Take classes that are either 1) really genuinely interesting to you or 2) will teach you something useful. I know that South Campus classes can be overwhelming and exhausting and it is tempting to take that class that is almost impossible to fail, but ask yourself if you will really get anything out of that class. Any class will be painful if you are just going thru the motions to get another X number of credits. I took Stats13 even though I knew it would be harder than Stats10, but I came out with a much better understanding of statistics and some R programming skills that have turned out to be incredibly useful. Make the most of your college classes--you are going to be here (and pay to be here) no matter what, so you might as well get something useful out of it.
Tyler Toueg
College Major: Neuroscience
Graduation Year: 2017
Did you attend graduate school (or do you have plans for graduate school)? I will be applying to Ph.D. programs that focus on Cognitive and Translational Neuroscience in the next year or two.
What is your current career or occupation? I volunteered as an RA in the Brain and Creativity Institute at USC this past year and I just accepted an offer to work as a full-time RA in the Mormino Laboratory at Stanford University.
How has your major helped you in this career? Having the opportunity to work on my own independent research project (199 contract course) really helped me develop my skills as a researcher and caused me to stand out when applying for subsequent RA positions. I also benefitted from the flexibility of the major requirements because I was able to take courses like Psych 186D - Laboratory in Functional Neuroimaging, which allowed me to become familiar with certain techniques/ideas that were relevant to my research interests.
What lead you to be in the field you are in now? I have always planned on getting my Ph.D. Working as a full-time RA is a great stepping stone towards pursuing that and allows you to get more experience doing research, more opportunity to be published, etc. What lead me to the specific field that I am working in now was a combination of chance and my personal interests. A full-time RA position is somewhat difficult to get if you have no connection with the lab that has the opening. You really need to be persistent about sending out lots and lots of applications and following up with the labs.
Do you have any other advice or tips for success? Networking - Probably the most underrated topic that I didn't hear a lot about when I was an undergrad. Who you know is hugely important if you are doing research (or anything else for that matter). Get to know the Grad Students and PI in your lab and stay in contact with them after you graduate or move on to another lab.
Surround yourself with like-minded people - This gets said a lot but it is something that really helped me during my time as an undergrad. Make friends with people who share your goals for the future. Joining or starting a club is a great way to find these kinds of people.
Go at your own pace - Some people are going to go straight into jobs or Ph.D. programs after undergrad, others may take a gap year or two. As long as you have an aim for what you want to do, don't stress about how much time you take to achieve your goals. If you stay persistent, you will get there. Also, don't compare yourself to other people that you think are more successful, compare yourself to who you were yesterday.
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Tyler graciously allowed us to give you his email, so if you are interested in talking with him you can contact him at tylertoueg@gmail.com
Anonymous Member
College Major: Neuroscience
Graduation Year: 2017
Did you attend graduate school (or do you have plans for graduate school)? Yes, currently.
If yes, where and for what? I am attending UCSF's Neuroscience graduate program where I am pursuing my PhD in Neuroscience.
What is your current career or occupation? Graduate Student
How has your major helped you in this career? Neuroscience prepared me in exposing me to different aspects of the field, as well as the breadth of this area. In addition to content preparedness, the program provided a starting point for how to be skeptical about Neuroscience, which is a key part of research/grad school.
What led you to be in the field you are in now? I spent the majority of my time at UCLA working in a research lab there, and I wanted to continue doing similar work. Research is challenging, but fun and exciting to me, so I wanted to keep doing it.
Do you have any other advice or tips for success?
1. Pursue something that motivates you and is interesting to you. Whether it be deciding on your major/minors, and/or career goals and post-grad plans, do something that excites you.
2. Take care of yourself, both mentally and physically. While it might not seem like it, you are running a marathon, not a sprint. This can be especially apparent after graduating UCLA, whether you go to medical school, graduate school, industry, etc. Be sure to take breaks to check in with yourself, whether it be a day activity to do something you enjoy, or just a brief walk around the block for some air. It can be easy to overwork yourself, and can lead to people 'burning out'.
3. Learning how to manage your work and free time effectively, and setting realistic goals for getting work done is an invaluable skill to learn that you can start at UCLA. This involves learning how to say 'thank you, but no' to some things.
4. It's good to have interests and hobbies outside of school and work for not only providing an escape but also to help you think in different ways when you are working.
Anonymous Member
College Major: Neuroscience
Graduation Year: 2017
Did you attend graduate school (or do you have plans for graduate school)? Applying to medical school this cycle
What is your current career or occupation? Teacher's Assistant, Yoga Teacher, Photographer
How has your major helped you in this career? Can't say that neuroscience directly relates to what I'm currently doing, but I will say that it was incredible preparation for the MCAT. A lot of our major is reading comprehension and is focused on primary resources which the new MCAT has had a trend towards.
What led you to be in the field you are in now? Primarily, it gives me the freedom to explore a bit before buckling down for medical school. I really encourage students who are pursuing a professional school (maybe less so a graduate school) to explore different careers and experiences that you won't really be able to once in your respective school and profession.
Do you have any other advice or tips for success? Surround yourself by like-minded people who want to be successful and put the work in. Do as much self-growth as you can even when things get hard - that's when it matters the most. Remember to have fun - you'll never get years like your undergrad back again, so enjoy it!
Yuqi Ma
College Major: Neuroscience
Graduation Year: 2018
Did you attend graduate school (or do you have plans for graduate school)? Yes
If yes, where and for what? Master's in IBP (Physci) (at least that's the plan)
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Do you have any other advice or tips for success?
In terms of doing well in the Neuroscience Major, I would say make sure you actually like what you're learning. If you don't, switch majors. There's no point in suffering through your only undergraduate experience with a major you're not passionate about. That being said, don't quit because you don't like your lower division classes. The vast majority of us don't, and it'll get much better once you take the core series: this is where you really find out if you like the major or not. Afterwards, it's not too late to switch out still, especially if you want to go into another Life Science major.
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I also found it helpful to have all of my classes planned out. I made an excel sheet back in freshman year with my ideal extracurricular and class plans, and although I certainly had to adjust it depending on class availability or new interests, it always helped me to stay on track and move forward.
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Lastly, actually take mental health breaks! (Of course there's a balance to it) but for those of you who say you don't have time to ever do fun stuff, JUST DO IT. It's good for you and it'll help you be more productive afterwards anyway.