An Email to a Friend

This is an email I sent to a good friend that pretty much encompasses everything I have to say about my recent desire to pursue neuroscience:

So call me a nutcase but the last couple of days I've been contemplating pretty heavily going back to school to get a degree in neuroscience. I'm looking up the programs they have at local universities and of course Emory's is by far the best. They are nationally recognized for their program in neuroscience. They also are expensive as fuck. But, aside from the money issue, I was looking at the courses that are required for the four years and as I was reading over the list I literally got tears in my eyes from how excited I was and how interesting all the classes would be. Yeah, chemistry and calculus are mandatory to pursue a BS in neuroscience but I understand the necessity for them. I wont be taking chemistry to just get through chemistry, I'll be taking chemistry because it actually pertains to an interest of mine.  Being able to see the goal ahead of me would, I think, push me to do better in classes that I don't have an immediate interest in. Neuroscience man! It makes me laugh out loud! But it's a topic I've been vastly fascinated by and read books on for years. Since I was in middle school. There is no doubt about it that it has always held my interest. Anyway, I just had to share with someone and I'm not going to go leaping into anything yet (I do tend to get carried away with myself sometimes). I'm just going to continue doing research on it and sit on it for awhile and take it one step at a time and be sure it's what I want to do. It's just so funny because I'm reading this book on neuroscience and I found it so interesting that I started taking notes on it in a notebook and then I found all these lectures from professors on neuroscience online so I'm going to start watching those and taking notes on those and I'm like wtf…if I'm doing this for FUN this is something I must really be interested in enough to go to school for. And what would I do with my degree in neuroscience? I'd be one of the scientists doing research and studies all the time. How fucking cool would that be? I wonder what sort of money those guys make…but at the same time its like who cares?! I would be delving into things no one has ever seen or considered before, completely new territory and also something that we all have right inside our own heads. It's a fascinating prospect that really just excites me to no end!