Travel Journal: Scotland
classroom. Here I am relaxing after a hike near the
Old Man of Storr.
My third class is called The Scottish Enlightenment and it's a requirement for all Principia Consortium students. The Principia Consortium is composed of several liberal arts school from around the country, including Centre College. This class takes a multi-discipline approach to the movement known as the Scottish Enlightenment. In this class, we've studied medical culture, literature, philosophy, natural history, historiography, aesthetics, religion, and finally the impact of the greater movement on the world. This class has been a valuable tool because it has allowed me some context for the learning environment and culture of Scotland. It requires two essays. We attend lecture once a week, and there is also a seminar or discussion group once per week.
My last class is by far my favorite! It is Functional Anatomy for international pre-med students. It's taught by Dr. Quentin Fogg, who has taught anatomy at a U.S. medical school and is a senior anatomy lecturer at the University of Glasgow. The course is designed to emulate the difficulty of anatomy classes in U.S. medical schools. It's been a very difficult course, but it has been invaluable. The course is split into five blocks—the back and upper limbs, head and neck, thorax, abdomen, lower limbs and pelvis. At the end of each block, there is a practical quiz and a written quiz. For the practical quiz, we must identify structures on plastinated specimens as well as on a computer program called the virtual human. The written quiz is written in the style of the USMLE (United States Medical Licensing Exam). These questions are diagnostic in nature and require us to use our knowledge of anatomy for diagnosis.
In this course, we most often look at pro-sected, plastinated specimens. While these specimens are real, we didn't do the dissections ourselves. The one exception is the abdomen block. During this block, we did dissections on an actual human cadaver—something most undergraduates would ever think of doing. I never dreamt that I'd have this opportunity until medical school, but I did it right here in Glasgow. It was a truly surreal experience, as well as an invaluable one. I'm so glad that future students will have the opportunity to experience this course. While it's a lot of work, the reward is so great. This class is one of the major reasons I decided to study abroad in Glasgow. It counts as a four-hour upper-level biology course in the “Organisms” category. It meets three times per week, for three hours each time.
Overall, I'm thoroughly enjoying all of my classes in Glasgow. They challenge me academically while still allowing me time to travel and enjoy all of the experiences that being abroad has to offer. I'd recommend all of them to future students in Scotland.
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