Leadership Alliance

Hey all,
Sorry I haven't written in so long, I've been busy. Nothing really exciting to report. I work five days a week 9-5 or 6. Have GRE study class two days a week 6:30-9 and journal club one day a week 6:30-9. Between all these I try to fit in an hour work-out a few days a week. On the time we do have off, usually our PI (primary investigator) have assigned extra reading or we are working on posters or papers we have to write. Basically all of us get home exhausted. On the weekends are surf activities and studying for the GRE. I decided not to take it at the end of this summer but instead, at the end of September. I'm glad I didn't sign up because students just now are realizing their test date is in 1.5 weeks and no one has really prepared because we are so busy.

My project is coming along. I'm thankful for this experience because it's taught me that two months of this kind of work is enough for a lifetime. I will not be going into a biology field as I thought I would all through college. While many in the program are trying to convince me not to give up all hope, I don't really see a very good job in this field where you don't have to do bench research, type 90-page long requests for grants, or be publishing, peer reviewing, or keeping up on very technical articles. I'm still interested in biology as it relates to health but on a more macro level. Well very macro.. I'm interested in population diseases. So now I've discovered the field of public health. Some of the jobs you can do would be to have a combined public health/public policy degree and go to DC and become an advocate for different healthcare issues, run a clinic, work for the Center for Disease Control, National Institute of Health, or head up other government and private programs. However, I just decided this so it's a little late to start taking more health related classes and participating in more specific internships, considering applications are due to graduate schools in December.

Also, I finally completed my Peace Corps application! It was about 100 pages long. I discovered a really cool program they have called Masters International. Specifically in the field of public health, the PC has a combined program with 13 schools where you can attend a few semesters and then receive credit hours towards your degree for your PC service and you write your thesis while you are there. However, you must get into both the PC and the school separately. This is perfect for me because I would get my degree which fulfills the education component but I feel I lack the experience so I think PC service would give me more field experience. And it turns out the schools are some of the top ranking programs. I will probably end up applying to a few really good schools' masters programs as well as a few of the Masters International programs. And hey, if I don't get into the Peace Corps but get accepted to one of the Masters International schools, I can still attend that school.

I think the people here are somewhat disappointed in my choice because the whole point of this program is to increase minorities in the biological PhD world, but sitting all day long with little person-to-person interaction is not me. Plus.. I have this weird need to wear lose fitting clothing, holding poor, dirty kids, and save the world. I think I could accomplish that better as a public health professional.

Besides that life-altering realization, I also went to Virginia/Washington D.C. this weekend to present at the Leadership Alliance Conference.

This is me presenting to a man dubbed "the mean mean man from Brown" who was extremely critical of everyone's posters. Since my protein that we were testing was a fairly new discovery, when he launched in to all these other experiments we should do, it was very easy to defend because he was absolutely right. I told him that yes, further testing should definitely be done to understand the function of this protein. He didn't expect that and really had nothing more to say. I think I stood up well against him.

The Leadership Alliance is primarily for minorities. While our program at Dartmouth is a member of this alliance, the alliance paid for the four minority students to attend but Dartmouth had to pay for our other 4 white students to attend. However, most of the schools didn't opt to do that and only sent the freebies, so the conference was 98% black. This is probably politically incorrect but honestly, it was a really good experience for me to see all the well-spoken, well dressed students from traditionally black colleges like Morehouse, Spelman, and Howard as opposed to the rap-singing, saggy pants wearing men and women who say they are expressing their black pride. Their fellow blacks may call them too white or something with a similar connotation, but black pride does not have to consist of reinforcing steriotypes, but can also consist of being educated and classy.

Besides presenting my poster, they also had panels of everyone from previous graduate admissions professors to a key note speaker who told us that we might be out of a small town, the ghetto, etc but it's not just our job to get out, it's our job to go back and bring at least two people out with us. I thought it was really inspirational, and reinforced what I had been thinking all weekend about public health. The graduate admissions panel also reinforced the idea of your applicaton being a whole package. While I'm always worried about 0.03 change in my GPA or getting a 1400 as opposed to a 1350 on my GRE, they told us that they look at the overall package. If you don't get in, it's not because of a minor thing. It's because several things about you are not in line with that certain program.

We got back late on Sunday and woke up for work the next morning.