One of our favorite classes at Harvard

Keith and I (and actually quite a number of the other Fellows) really enjoyed Niall Ferguson's Western Economies, Societies and Politics (1648-present)class. He is a masterful lecturer, with a definite right of center and Brit-centric perspective. I've never seen anyone pull so much information and data into such tight and engaging presentations that, remarkably enough, usually end right on time. His adept use of PowerPoint proves that P.P. does not have to be an instrument of torture and, in fact, can be used for good. And he's a pretty sharp improviser as well, providing a few laughs here and there when something unexpected arises.

We particularly loved the data that he brought into the discussion of history. It provided great context and perspective. It was also great fun to watch him discuss historical figures for whom he has great disdain, for example Jean-Jacques Rousseau. There is a sample lecture of his on the Harvard Extension site.

If you ever happen to have the chance to see him lecture don't miss it!

As an aside, he sort of looks like he could be related to Charlie Tillinghast, the president of the company I used to work for.

Meet our guitar teacher Sam

Miles and I just started taking guitar lessons with Sam, in his wild apartment featured in the video. When we bought Miles' guitar before our first lesson and mentioned our teacher's name in the shop, everyone smiled and said, "Moooo". Now we understand. His apartment has even more features now and HGTV did a little piece on it.

I knew we had found the right guy when during the lesson Miles was trying to be a bit too clever...and Sam looked at me and said, "Don't worry, I can 'out-Miles' Miles."

More details on Keith's classes

Since several friends have asked what I ended up studying, here's a list of the actual classes.

I've been doing the textbook reading for the first two of these, while the rest are more like lecture series for me (and I do read bits and pieces of the readings for them, if it looks interesting):

- Intro to Biology (MIT)
- Intro to Neuroscience (MIT)
- Neurobiology (Harvard Med School) ... this conflicts with MIT Biology, so I'm attending about half the lectures (it's 3 hours every Mon, Wed, Fri), and it's been great for deepening what I'm getting from the Neuroscience class
- Human Physiology (Harvard)
- Madness and Medicine (Harvard) ...It's a history of the psychiatric profession and of asylums
- Paleobiology ... Ecology and Evolution (Harvard ) (this is mostly about the fossil record)

I guess you could say I'm studying biology and neurobiology, and learning about the rest. I'm happy to say that the classes are comlementing each other ... with the vocabulary I build in one class helping me understand the next.

I'm learning SO much science ...

I can't believe how much science I've learned in just 5-6 weeks. If I had to leave now, it already would be an incredibly productive year.

I'm attending six classes, but not all of them full-time. And I'm doing the readings for two or three of them. Of course, I have no tests or papers or grades, so it's low stress. My focus is on the fundamentals of life itself, and the brain specifically. So, I have two biology classes, two introductory neuroscience classes, a history of psychiatry class called Madness and Medicine, and a class that focuses on fossils and how changing ecosystems have affected evolution.

Plus, we have our own series of twice-weekly seminars, organized by the Knight program director, and that’s been outstanding. (Here’s the agenda, if you’re interested http://web.mit.edu/knight-science/seminars/current.html)

I’m just about at the point where I can have a conversation with a scientist and understand all the vocabulary!

Understanding neurons - a Eureka moment

Finally, a Eureka moment in my pursuit of how the neuron works. Much of what I’ve been studying, through lectures and reading, is actually pretty straightforward, and pretty much anyone who has time to sit in class and read textbooks could get the gist of it. But I’ve always been stumped by the electrical part. Electricity is what kicked my butt out of physics back in my freshman year, and it’s been befuddling me this fall. I could always see the logic in the equations that represent current and voltage. But it’s so hard to visualize what’s actually happening. Neurons function by creating an “electrical potential.” And tonight I finally can see how and why that happens. I’ve re-read the textbook chapter several times, and I’ve even taken to reading other textbooks on the topic, to see if they explain more clearly, and one of them did, by going into greater depth (instead of trying to simplify and gloss over the details).

Basically, the complexity of neurons (and all biology, really) comes from a series of chemical reactions that happen in chain-reaction form, cascading one after another. For example, you end up with: the 12 steps to transform molecule-A into molecule B; or the seven steps in moving K ions and N ions. I’m not attempting to memorize all of these, or any of them really. But it is exciting and rewarding to understand what’s involved. It’s sort of like learning how a car’s engine works: If you don’t work on it regularly, you won’t remember the details, or even all of the vocabulary, but you’ll retain a general sense of how it works, and an appreciation of what’s most critical and what can go wrong. And if something does go wrong or needs to be changed, you have a context to at least discuss it. That’s how I’m starting to feel now about neurons and synapses.

Can Keith handle med school?

Today in my Neurobiology class, I had my first episode in a long time of squeamishness over medical topics. The guest lecturer was a neurologist (who is currently working at a local biotech co.). He brought with him a man in his 40’s who has Multiple Sclerosis. And they walked through the man’s medical history, starting with the onset at age 38 of some mysterious symptoms – numbness on one half of his body. His primary care doc couldn’t make any sense of it and thought it was probably nothing, but sent him to a specialist. He went to three specialists, including an ophthalmologist, before seeing a neurologist. They ran him through an MRI and found signs that “might” be MS. He says he was in denial for about six months, hoping they just had it wrong. But the episodes kept recurring. I guess MS tends to flare up every few months. It’s a disease that hits certain spots in the nervous system, almost like a bruise. If the spot is in your neck, you get numbness below that point. If it’s in your brain, it may affect your vision. He’s been taking drugs that prevent new occurrences, although the existing ones keep getting worse. MS causes the insulating layer of cells around nerve connections to decay.

I had to leave before further discussion of his case, to make it on time to my Biology class. But I was ready for a break anyway. Why did this bother me in a visceral way? I think I was empathizing deeply, and imagining myself having a sudden and mysterious onset like that. Whenever I get squeamish, it's because I'm imagining myself being the victim.

Keith's first week of classes

The first week of classes (at MIT; Harvard starts two weeks later) had all the nervous excitement you may remember from being a freshman, except moderated (thankfully) by a little maturity. I was happily uncaring about all the social aspects that fight for your attention as an adolescent. And I really didn’t care much if anyone wondered what this old guy was doing in their classes. I could just sit back and purely enjoy learning. It’s like having a full-time job of going to City Arts and Lectures events. Already, the biology and neuroscience classes are filling gaps in my knowledge, even though they’re undergraduate and introductory. Part of me feels they could move a bit faster, that I’m more advanced than the undergraduates, and hey, I don’t have to worry about mastering all the equations and vocabulary. But I’ve met some resistance from the graduate neuroscience program at MIT; the course director (Earl Miller) doesn’t want any outsiders, since it’s meant for incoming doctoral students. I guess it’s their big bonding moment. Anyway, he was quite dismissive and that annoyed me. I am participating in a graduate course at Harvard Medical School. It’s an intro to neurobiology, where half the class is second-year med students and half is incoming PhD candidates through a different neuro program. Those lectures were great – very meaty, but I was able to follow. But the class meets for three hours, three times a week, and it overlaps with the Biology class that I think is really fundamental (since the only biology I got was as a 10th grader). So, I’m attempting to go to the first 40 minutes of the med school class, which is held on a different campus, across the river in Boston, and then hop a train-bus combo to get to MIT in time for the biology lectures.