Connor Neifert

Neural Engineering PhD candidate, bridging the gap between #neurorehab #research and their neuromodulatory mechanisms

[Parmita Mishra @parmita]

Hot take.

If you come into undergrad wanting to be a biologist, intro Biology can feel like a letdown.

you aren’t really sitting with a bunch of budding biologists—you’re surrounded by future doctors. and the room is *huge*.

It’s a strange mismatch: The professor might yearn to illuminate the beautiful, open-ended nature of biology, but 98% of the class is laser-focused on acing the test and moving on to med school.

In an ideal world, every biology class would be the launchpad for grappling with fundamental mysteries of life—embracing not knowing, identifying patterns in chaos, and understanding living systems as more than static facts on a syllabus.

But in reality, any course is often shaped by its students. Here, there’s a “get the highest grade” mindset. that’s not the pre-med’s fault; if your end goal is an MD, your incentives are clear: stand out academically, a competitive endeavour. Add to that, that >90% of the class is not going to practice anything related to whale metabolism or fungal complexity in the hospital.

This dynamic is uniquely pronounced in biology. it’s such a standard pre-med route, it’s almost assumed. (I’d add chemistry in here too, although less so)

In other introductory fields—Physics 101, for instance—the class may have some future physicists, some engineers, some students exploring other directions entirely.

in Biology 101, the sheer number of people whose ambition - or rather, worry - lies in getting into medical school reframes the entire experience. The classroom atmosphere often warps around the pursuit of med school prerequisites, at the expense of cultivating a deeper sense of wonder about the living world - even if the professor feels otherwise.

The tragedy is that biology itself—this wide, profound, and in many ways philosophical discipline—gets distilled down to a series of exam-ready bullet points.

It’s as if we’re forced to treat a fundamentally open-ended, investigative field like a rote memorization challenge.

for the few actual biology nerds in that first-year classroom, the message is: “Look at the mean of this class. Look at where you are. Learn better next time.” And guess what: in many of my classes, the mean was 100%. most of the students forgot what they learned the next day.

Then, only at the graduate level do you finally get the space to relish in the uncertainties, the messy details, and the “non-binary” nature of life itself. You write papers, learn in groups, talk to BIOLOGISTS - your prof - in smaller groups.

That’s the hot take: An entire generation of undergrad biology majors miss out on the joyful, eye-opening side of biology because the culture around that major is dominated by FEAR for the right grade, not the knowledge.

And that’s unfortunate—both for the aspiring biologist who yearns to understand the vast tapestry of life, and for the field, which benefits when more bright minds learn to think like a biologist, rather than just ace exams on the way to med school.

[Connor Neifert @ConnorNeifert]

An absolute thrill to better define the tactile mechanismsof this response with @A_Albeely @PratelliMarta Arturo @ZheyiNi
@YuYangHrb !
Thanks @annmclemens @BrechtLab for the mentorship on the project, and @NSB_MBL @MBLScience for making this opportunity possible!

[Yu Yang @YuYangHrb]

It is my great honor to contribute to this paper during the summer at @NSB_MBL @MBLScience and work with our super team: @A_Albeely
@PratelliMarta, Arturo, @ZheyiNi, and @ConnorNeifert. Really appreciate the mentorship from Ann @annmclemens and Michael @BrechtLab!

[Connor Neifert @ConnorNeifert]

@amandasolano759 💪 💪 😤

[Connor Neifert @ConnorNeifert]

An incredible experience to work with this brilliant team. Stoked to be putting our work from @NSB_MBL @MBLScience out into the world!

[Connor Neifert @ConnorNeifert]

Had an amazing time sharing the wonders of the brain with inspiring middle schoolers with @A_Albeely! 🧠 ✨️ Hope to see some future neuroscientists and engineers in the making! #outreach #STEM #MBL

[Abdalla Albeely, PhD @A_Albeely]

#tbt to when @ConnorNeifert and I visited the Children’s School of Science in #woodshole. We visited a class of 10-11 years old kids!
We talked to them about science at the @MBLScience @NSB_MBL. It was a lot of fun!

The future of science is bright

#outreach