Christopher Cook is a recipient of the Goldwater Scholarship, one of the most prestigious undergraduate science scholarships in the country.<\/p>\n
When drum major Christopher Cook takes the field to lead the SMU Mustang Band at halftime, he begins with a cartwheel and dance moves. You might not expect the showman to be one of the top undergraduate science scholars in the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cMusic, obviously, by nature, it\u2019s going to be very creative,\u201d Cook said. \u201cBut it\u2019s also analytical. I mean, you\u2019re reading music off a sheet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cook is a physics major at SMU who was recently awarded the Goldwater Scholarship. He was the only recipient in Texas to receive the scholarship for physics.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like I\u2019m doing something right,\u201d Cook said.<\/p>\n
While Cook is clearly a standout academic, he is far from the only STEM major in the Mustang Band.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe band right now is sitting at about 40 percent or so in the STEM courses or STEM majors and about the same number in music,\u201d SMU Mustang Band Director Charles Aguillon said. \u201cIt\u2019s not that the smart kids choose music. Music has made them smarter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Studies have shown a correlation between music and math, with fractions and patterns used to create melody and rhythm.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think science is more creative thinking than you would imagine, and also music is more analytical thinking than you can imagine,\u201d Cook said. \u201cI think there\u2019s a lot more, I guess overlap, between the way I think in the two fields than most people would think.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aguillon said the diverse SMU Mustang Band reflects the campus. Every member of the band receives scholarship money to perform, which he says is an incentive that resonates with students.<\/p>\n
SMU will play its final home game of the football season this weekend at Gerald Ford Stadium.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Christopher Cook is a recipient of the Goldwater Scholarship, one of the most prestigious undergraduate science scholarships in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":386451,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5135],"tags":[5229,1596,20489,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-386450","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-dallas","10":"tag-smu","11":"tag-texas","12":"tag-tx","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115568066545787170","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}