Realizations about grad school

The reading doesn't really matter. This is not entirely accurate. It's important insofar as it develops a background that you can draw upon for research. Research is really all that's important. You can do a half-assed reading and bs it. You can skim something once and never worry about it again. It's not going to be tested. You might also pick something up and never put it down for hours. It's all about seeing something and going for it, head first. I don't think I realized before how suited I am to grad school. Well, in a sense. As an undergrad, I read most of what was assigned to me. There were few classes where I skimped on the reading (most of them pass/no pass classes I was taking for fun). Now, even though these are letter graded classes, I realize that it's not always that important for me to do the reading. In my problem solving class, there's a fair amount of reading each week. Nothing too extravagant. Part of our grade is how much we participate in the discussion of the reading in class, but it's a small part of the grade. Most of our grade is a project of original research (actually, I could just duplicate someone else's findings if I felt like being boring). Now this is where I decided that grad school suits me. If I get an idea in my head, I get very excited about it. I start thinking of ways to implement it, if it were possible, what it would tell me, etc. This research project came to me in a flash and now I can't get my mind past it. I have to do something that models problem solving. I want to tape people playing Tetris Attack. Think of how it will benefit mankind! Actually, when you think about it, you could model cognitive abilities quite well using Tetris Attack. I would say my hypothesis is that improvement is based upon search mechanisms. As you improve, you must develop more effective and efficient methods of searching. At first as a novice, it is challenging just to search for three tiles to match up. As you progress past novice, you are able to find three in a row with little difficulty and are even able to search for higher combos of more than three in a row. The next step (chains) is the hardest where your search must include tiles far away from where the original action takes place. As you improve more and more, your search becomes more inclusive of the whole screen. Speed also plays a vital role. This area of cognition could be very fascinating to read into. I hope the prof thinks this project could be feasible. I can't wait!