{"id":19437,"date":"2023-02-21T19:31:10","date_gmt":"2023-02-21T19:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/160-news\/?p=19437"},"modified":"2026-04-16T21:31:06","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T21:31:06","slug":"helping-veterans-in-minneapolis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/2023\/02\/helping-veterans-in-minneapolis\/","title":{"rendered":"Helping veterans in Minneapolis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Landed is an ongoing series where we ask recent graduates how things are going post-graduation. Here, Helen Frieman reflects on her time at Mac and what she\u2019s been doing since graduating in May 2022.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Helen Frieman<br>Evanston, Illinois<br>Neuroscience<br>Currently working at the Minneapolis Veteran Affairs<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Lightning Round<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Favorite superpower: Mind-reading<\/span><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hidden talents: Playing the guitar<\/span><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Favorite spot in the Twin Cities: Kalsada, a coffee shop a few blocks away from campus<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Why Macalester?<\/strong><br><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I wanted to be in an urban environment and Macalester popped up straight off the bat.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>What was your most challenging course?<\/strong><br><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cognitive Neuroscience was really difficult for me, but it also confirmed that I was interested in neuroscience.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>What else did you do during your time at Mac?<\/strong><br><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I tutored in the Spanish Department starting my sophomore year. That department was my home even though it&#8217;s not directly tied to my major.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Any research during your time at Mac?<\/strong><br><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I worked with Dr. Lucy Vulchanova at the University of Minnesota in the Department of Neuroscience. Macalester has a lot of connections to that lab\u2014they hire a Macalester student every summer.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Advice for new students<\/strong><br><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Pick a college where you&#8217;ll be comfortable to make it what you want. My first-year course professor broke down exactly how much Macalester tuition costs per hour and said, \u201cIf you&#8217;re not coming to my office hours, you&#8217;re wasting your money.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>What are you doing now?<\/strong><br><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I&#8217;m in the Twin Cities. I interned at the Minneapolis VA during my senior year as an undergraduate research assistant. Now I\u2019m a Psychology Study Coordinator and a psychometrist at a neuropsychology clinic. I am definitely learning a lot both about the field itself as well as the possible career paths and opportunities.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Looking back, what do you appreciate about Macalester?<\/strong><br><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I felt really empowered to learn. And, take in knowledge and then apply that knowledge.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Helen Frieman turned an internship at the Minneapolis Veterans Affair into a job after graduation.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":19439,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community-engagement","mediatype-articles","collections-neurosciencehomepage"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"fields":{"article_type":[8],"flickr_photoset_id":"","youtube_id":"","square_thumbnail":false,"press_photos":false,"story_title":"","story_caption":"","rotations":[171],"maps":false,"marker_title":"","marker_text":"","geographic_location":false,"feature_embed":"","custom_link_url":"","news_icon_name":"","image_options":false,"main_feature_story":"","custom_image":false,"custom_feature_title":"","custom_feature_caption":"","custom_markup":"","custom_markup_link":"","custom_markup_title":"","custom_markup_caption":"","byline":"","post_thumbnail_style":"default","press_downloads":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19437"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30959,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19437\/revisions\/30959"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}