Welcome to my Honors & Scholars e-Portfolio

Hi, my name is Amy Verway-Cohen and I am from Columbus, Ohio. I am in the class of 2022 at The Ohio State University and am majoring in biochemistry with a minor in neuroscience. My eportfolio will teach you a little about myself including experiences I have had, my accomplishments, my career and future goals, and more.

About Me

My name is Amy Verway-Cohen and I am a second year undergraduate student at The Ohio State University. I am currently pursuing a Bachelor of Science in biochemistry with a minor in neuroscience to possibly do research, yet I am still exploring all of my options. I am involved in the Biological Scholars Program and hopefully will soon be a part of the Akumanyi Foundation here on campus. In my junior year of high school, I had the amazing opportunity to do research in a microbiology lab at OSU with Dr. Charles Bell. During the second half of my junior year and all of my senior year, I did College Credit Plus through my high school and was able to take 40 credit hours worth of college classes on OSU’s campus! Currently I am in an internship here at OSU in a biochemistry lab with Dr. Chris Zhu. In my free time, I love to read, watch movies, go to football games, and play curling.

Summer Research 2017

During the summer of 2017, I had a job doing laboratory research at OSU that involved DNA recombineering. I learned a lot about DNA and how you can replace specific nucleotides to tell you different things. Through the job, I became a lot more independent since each day I came in, I had figure out what experiments I was conducting.

Summer Research 2019

In the spring semester of my freshman year in 2019 I started an internship in a biochemistry lab under Dr. Chris Zhu. This research extended into the summer and my sophomore year. The research I did over the summer was working with a strain of bacteria and seeing how well they grew when being fed different diets -milk, glucose, oil, and regular media. Through this research I learned how patient you have to be with experiments and how things can change at a moments notice. I had to continuously adjust the amount of diet being fed to the bacteria in order to find the optimal amount of nutrients to ‘feed’ the bacteria.

Second Year Transformational Experience Program (STEP)

During my sophomore year I did STEP and with my STEP funds I will hopefully be going to Ghana and helping at the Akumanyi Foundation in the spring of 2021. In the fall semester of my sophomore year, I met with my STEP group once a week and we talked about the different ways we wanted to use our STEP funds and also did a lot of group bonding. In the spring semester of my sophomore year, I worked on my STEP proposal which is to go to Ghana for two weeks through Buck-I-Serve and help at the Akumanyi Foundation. This foundation has many ongoing projects including building schools, health initiatives, helping teach kids, and more. I am very excited to be a part of this experience and to learn about the communities in Ghana.

G.O.A.L.S.

Global Awareness: students cultivate and develop their appreciation for diversity and each individual’s unique differences. During my sophomore year I participated in STEP and with the funding I get from doing the program I will be going to Guatemala, Ghana, or South Africa in the spring of 2021. Going to one of these places will give me an experience I will never forget. I will be able to help people in the communities in one of these countries and learn a lot about other cultures. I will forever apply what I will learn to my daily life and continue to try to find opportunities to help me grow as a person.

Original Inquiry: students understand the research process by engaging in experiences ranging from in-class to independent experiences with top researchers across campus and in the global community. Personally, through opportunities in my high school, I was able to intern at a microbiology lab at OSU during the spring semester of my junior year of high school. I will continue to achieve this goal as I continue to have more experiences in other internships, including the one under Dr. Chris Zhu.

Academic Enrichment: students pursue academic excellence through rigorous curricular experiences beyond the university norm both in and out of the classroom. Since I was in a College Credit Plus program during high school, I came into college with 40 credits which means that some of the classes I took my freshman year are higher level, like my General Chemistry 1220 class. I will continue to achieve this goal as I fulfill my GE’s and major required classes. So far, I have finished all of my math courses which went through Calculus 3 and will be taking Biochemistry 2 in the fall of 2020.

Leadership Development: students develop leadership skills that can be demonstrated in the classroom, community, their co-curricular activities, and that prepares them for their future roles in society. In my internships I have had to be the leader by working together on experiments with others in the lab. In order for the experiments to be done in a timely fashion, each person needs to have a different responsibility and everyone needs to be able to work together and communicate. I will use these skills in my future endeavors both in class and internships and in life.

Service Engagement: students will commit to service to the community. I have volunteered with many organizations including Meals On Wheels, COSI, and at Wesley Glen Retirement Community. I will continue to volunteer in my community, wherever that may be, and will help it for the better.

Career

Click here to download resume

While interning for Dr. Zhu, I learned a lot about how a laboratory is run and how it works. This gave me a lot of insight into the environment and showed me that I enjoy wet lab research. One experience that I have not had yet that I hope to have soon is working in a hospital setting in a research lab. I hope to find an internship working in The James Cancer Hospital that will be focused around neuroscience or something similar.

More details about my internships can be found under the Artifact tab.

End of Year Reflection

Freshman year: My freshman year was both stressful and exciting. Of course, the stress came from classes and transitioning from living at home to being on my own. I think I adapted very well and I love being so independent now. I did struggle with learning to balance my social life with classes along with having a job, but eventually I found a routine that worked well for me. College has also been very exciting from meeting new people and making new friends to having new experiences. Overall, I think I’ve grown as a person by becoming more independent and I can’t wait to face next year’s challenges.

Sophomore year: My sophomore year was even better than my freshman year from meeting new people to having more experiences. I met some of my closest friends this year and I was able to live with my best friend as well! It was a lot easier for me to balance my social and academic lives, now that it was my second year of college. The spring semester of this year was pretty stressful since classes transitioned from in person learning to online learning because of COVID-19. Most of my professors made the transition very easy and I was able to finish the semester feeling accomplished. I also took my first biochemistry class which was hard but I was able to make it through and I am excited for my next one in the fall!

Vision Statement

My first two years here at OSU have been amazing and I can’t wait for the next two. I have been taught so much in my classes and in my social life and know there is so much more to learn, even after college. My plan right now is to go to graduate school and I have a couple ideas of what my focus would be but have not officially decided yet. Long term I will most likely get my PhD but I will probably finish graduate school and get a job first and then decide to go back for my PhD or not. Short term I am focusing on getting my BS and am looking for an internship at The James that hopefully specializes in neuroscience or something similar. Right now there are none available because of COVID-19 but I am going to continue looking and for the time being just focus on my classes.