Several of the BioSci Scholars got together to play board games at KingMakers in Columbus. Due to a Spanish oral exam, I got there a little later than everyone else, but still had the opportunity to play Jenga and Scattergories with other Scholars. For the first time, I got to have fun conversations with other people in the group (I spent most of my semester secluding myself in my dorm- which was a mistake in hindsight).
Artifacts
Visit to the Star House
BioSci Scholars at Star House
On September 14th, a group of BioSci scholars went to the Star House, a homeless youth shelter, to volunteer. There, we sorted winter items by category into men’s and women’s bins and labeled them accordingly. We also helped them to bring up clothing to the laundry room and hung them up for the kids to select from. Even though I didn’t grow up with much, and I left home at 16, I was still very fortunate in that I always had a place to sleep, clean my clothing, and almost everything I needed, without worry. Columbus is a completely different place than where I am from. It is absolutely incredible that the Star House is helping these kids without forcing them go to back into a potentially abusive home.
Artifacts
Science first piqued my interest when I was 7 years old, and just a wee Brownie Girl Scout. My troop had decided to attend a session at the Omniplex (later renamed to The Science Museum of Oklahoma) where we had the opportunity to spend the night in the museum! Over the course of the night, it was basically a science fair expo with experiments happening all across the building already filled with more permanent examples of the beautifully complicated world around us. Several months later, I attended a forensic science camp, also with Girl Scouts, at the University of Central Oklahoma. There, we learned about blood spatter, fingerprinting, ballistics, forensic biology, and all other aspects involved in crime scene investigation. It was then, at 8 years old, that I wanted to be a homicide detective.
However, as I entered high school, I had the opportunity to attend seminars and meet with professionals outside of the classroom. In the spring of 2017, I attended a conference by Sam Rhine on CRISPR and cancer. This incredible 4 hour seminar pushed me towards research and medical innovation, to which I discovered the incredibly complex world of viruses. Currently, I hope to become a virologist after earning my microbiology degree and attending medical school. Though, after meeting with Nicole Raab, industry might be my next great adventure- or biochemical warfare.
