The Honors Program heavily emphasizes the importance of experiential learning: removing ourselves from the confines of a classroom to grow as students of the world. Over the past four years, I've realized just how important this approach is, since so many of my most memorable and formative experiences happened more or less between the traditional classroom and the real world. Through observational internships, study abroad, and unexpected research pursuits outside of neuroscience, I have learned more about myself, and my professional and personal goals, both present and future. Read on to find out more about these experiences and how they have played various roles in my personal and professional growth!
Centre Léon Bérard
The idea of pursuing medicine as a career had always been in the back of my mind. But how could I know for sure if the extent of my experience in the field could be summed up by annual check-ups and brief interludes in my science classes? Luckily, in the summer after my freshman year, I got the opportunity to visit Centre Léon Bérard, one of France’s leading cancer treatment and research centers. That whole month felt, and continues to feel, like a fever dream. Not only was I able to wander the streets of Lyon freely, I also got to experience medicine at its core. Mentored by Dr. Sophie Deneuve, a rockstar otolaryngologist (try saying that three times fast), as well as other surgical specialists, I was able to witness the entire treatment process, from patient visits to diagnosis to surgery, chemo or radiotherapy. And each time I entered the clinic or the OR, I was humbled by the privilege I had been given to just walk into these patients’ and doctors’ lives, as a nineteen-year-old doe-eyed American, and learn about the deepest physical and mental hardships they have to endure. I learned that I would be lucky to be a doctor, to be able to help patients and their loved ones through some of their most difficult experiences.
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Honors Study Abroad: Sweden
It’s easy to get wrapped up in your own story, in your courses and work, and to turn inward as you are trying your best to just get through yet another quarter successfully. But the Honors Program always has a way to reel you back into reality, to push you to look outside of yourself, learn something new about the world, about people different from you, about places you are unfamiliar with.
The Sweden study abroad program exemplified this outward perspective for me. Although the program was only a month long, I was pushed out of my comfort zone in many ways: meeting and living with new people, traveling alone in an unfamiliar country, learning about a new field of study. And I learned more in that month that has stuck with me than I ever expected. Our first week in Sweden, we attended Stockholm Pride, one of the world’s biggest Pride events, which consists of various seminars from human rights activists and asylum seekers sharing their stories and experiences. I heard stories of LGBT asylum seekers fleeing their homelands, disowned by their families, physically and emotionally traumatized, unable to be themselves. I heard their harrowing stories about how their rights continued to be violated in their communities in Sweden. And I remember the ink smearing on the pages of my notes from my tears as I tried to keep it together, knowing that I have never and would never experience such hate and injustice. Throughout the rest of the program, we heard from human rights lawyers, professors, activists, and journalists who educated us about the social injustices faced by the Roma people, racial minorities, and women, even within the human rights utopia of Sweden. We cannot be complacent about human rights. Kim Kraft and Dr. Carlson-Rainer, and all of my amazing peers on this program, have and continue to inspire me to be an advocate for others whenever I can, to use my privilege for good. And this is critical now more than ever, as fundamental human rights continue to be violated even in our own home. Discourse and actionable change that protects all human rights are critical to the work of any field. And as I prepare for a career in medicine, I vow to use my position to advocate for the health care rights of all disproportionately vulnerable populations, whether based on race, sexuality, gender, age, etc. |
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From Study Abroad to International Relations Research
Much to my surprise, my undergraduate experience with international relations and human rights research didn't end with my study abroad program. Starting in January, I was honored to have the opportunity to assist Dr. Carlson-Rainer, one of our professors in Sweden, as she finished writing and editing her book “From Pariah to Priority: How LGBTI Rights Became a Pillar of U.S. and Swedish Foreign Policy.” This book focuses on discussing the role of the LGBTI rights movement in informing foreign policy. Dr. Carlson-Rainer analyzes historic and current human rights discourses in two major world powers: Sweden, the nation that pioneered the inclusion of LGBTI rights in international relations, and the United States.
This seemed like a big task for someone with next to no experience in International Studies. I could write a half-way decent lab report on RC circuits, but to make the leap to a brand new field was intimidating. However, I managed to find a way to apply everything I learned in my time in Sweden, and in all of my previous Honors classes, and found that I was able to find my own unique voice in a once alien field of research. I was inspired to learn more about the interconnected web of ideas and discourses within politics, economics, and social justice that are critical for us to understand the world, find our place in it, and make informed change for the better.
This seemed like a big task for someone with next to no experience in International Studies. I could write a half-way decent lab report on RC circuits, but to make the leap to a brand new field was intimidating. However, I managed to find a way to apply everything I learned in my time in Sweden, and in all of my previous Honors classes, and found that I was able to find my own unique voice in a once alien field of research. I was inspired to learn more about the interconnected web of ideas and discourses within politics, economics, and social justice that are critical for us to understand the world, find our place in it, and make informed change for the better.
HONORS 392 (Science and Engineering for Social Justice): A Class of Inspiration
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As I entered my senior year, I felt driven to continue learning more about social justice and human rights, particularly in the context of science. I took this class with Dr. Hendricks in fall 2019 that not only allowed me to learn more about the history of human rights violations within science and engineering, but also how these fields could in turn be used to right many wrongs, to find scientific solutions to achieve social justice. Dr. Hendricks gave us the freedom to choose any social justice issue and analyze it for our final paper. Issues surrounding climate change were of particular interest to me, both personally and academically, and I had read several articles discussing the consequences of climate change on human life, specifically on marginalized and impoverished communities, both in the United States and in the Global South. I decided to focus my final paper on climate refugees, a growing population of people facing displacement because of the effects of climate change. The research I conducted for this paper left me with a continued interest in migration studies, the multi-faceted causes and consequences of migration. This was a timely discovery, and one that has informed my plans for the upcoming year (for more on that, visit the Encore page).
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