Epilogue

Abstract

A student who embarks on a career in neuroscience necessarily spends a portion of her early training in the classroom, where she is like a snorkeler on the surface of the sea surveying the contours, objects, and activities on the reef below. In some places the reef is clear; in others it recedes from view or is obscured by a pocket of turbid water. Occasionally, the snorkeler submerges for a closer look at something interesting, but she is not equipped to linger for very long. If you have read this far without skipping too many chapters, then you may feel a bit as though you’ve been snorkeling over the reef of neuroscience. Like the snorkeler who, eager to remain longer at depth and examine a part of the reef more closely, swaps her snorkel for an air bottle and regulator, you may soon trade your textbooks for the healing implements of the neurology clinic or the analytic instruments of the research lab. But you would be well advised to remember that although it is rewarding, working at depth comes at the expense of the panoramic view. It is important to surface from time to time andsnorkel, so that the broadercontext ofyourfocused explorations is not forgotten and so that you might identify new sites for future exploration.