I feel that my life is really going to start improving as soon as classes let out in April. I’m so excited for the new ventures I’ll explore. I just found out last week that I was awarded a Howard Hughes Internship. For all of you who may have not heard of it, it is a compilation of 25 awards handed out to students each year. Five are especially designated for freshman. The award provides the funds for research supplies and living expenses so that a summer of research is capable. I started my undergraduate research this semester and was very excited to apply for the H.H. internship. I had a leg up on my competition as I already had a research director and she was incredibly helpful in drafting my project which is much tailored to my interests. I’m pleased and excited to receive this award and will be spending my summer on campus research an aspect of ovarian cancer. Seeing as I want to be an OB/GYN, this couldn’t be more perfect.
Then comes my fall semester of 08. I’m rather interested to see how things go. I’ll be taking organic chemistry, the next class of my biology major core- cell structure and function, German 401 (just trying to round out my minor- only 2 classes after 401!!!), and a COM 491 which is the guinea pig technical presentation/writing for the College of Science. I might drop that because if my research goes well I could publish a paper and would then only have to present it to get my communications requirement. In all, I’ll be spending over 12 hours in the lab a week- YIKES. I’m very excited though and thankful for the opportunity to get involved in lab.