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5/2/2018 0 Comments Why I Committed to RutgersSo… if you’re reading this you already know I committed to Rutgers. And… sigh. I have mixed feelings. Which I will dissect in this highly personal and angsty post that I completely don’t fault you for not wanting to read. So consider yourself warned and read at your own risk. No flames, please.
Okay, let’s start with the obvious: why did I commit to Rutgers? Let’s break it down. (Because I am a fan of breaking stuff down.)
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Well, it’s over. Weeks and weeks of pouring over stained slides, slaving over the VS120, perfecting the poster and my paper, and it’s done. It has definitely been an amazing amazing experience. I practically ended up living in the lab and I did not like waking up at 7 am every morning, but I would not exchange the experience for anything. Plus I loved it so much that I’m now staying there! Until school starts. Besides being an actual part of actual science, I can take so many other valuable lessons from this experience.
Honestly, both of these weeks were full of so much of the same things, that after I wrote a week 5 update it didn’t feel like enough information to actually post an entire post. So I decided to combine both of them together. Sorry if these are short or particularly boring (the weeks themselves felt short and particularly boring), but alas, this is a part of science as well.
I can’t believe summer is already halfway over! And that I’m only going to be in the lab for 4 more weeks :( But regardless, 4 weeks is better than none; I’m super excited for the next few weeks where we’ll really start working on compiling all our research together for our paper and poster and so forth. As for this week, we did a lot of prep with our final presentation in mind. Lots and lots and lots of IHC. And flow cytometry. And protein assays. But mostly IHC. So much. And along with all of that, there was so much failure this week. Nothing we did this week was a success. It was “You get a failure! You get a failure! Everyone gets a failure and complete waste of time!” Sigh…
This week was the week of learning. Along with continuing to do the procedures that we had already learned, we learned so so so many new things. Most importantly, we finalized what we’ll be doing for our final “project” that we will eventually present in August during the Liberty Science Center Symposium. This week, because it was another THED week, was also spent working with a lot of other grad, undergrad, and high school students (including one of the smartest people I have ever met). And in case you haven’t read my earlier updates, here’s the first one.
Sooooo… I am going to die next year. I mean, I’ll still be having so much fun (while slowly gasping for breath and drowning in my own pile of papers) but it is going to be so much work. Here’s a quick glimpse of what is on my plate senior year: NHS Pres, Smile Train Co-pres, Pres of USABO, STUCOOOOO Pres (student council), my AP classes, trying to take all the electives possible, oh my god Senior Capstone Thesis, Columbia SHP, volunteering, college apps, playing and teaching piano, this blog. Oh man. I’m crying writing this right now.
But as you can see, being willy-nilly unproductive, inefficient is not going to fly this year. So I am embarking on a journey to get my sh*t together for senior year. My goal is to also foster these good habits and practices for when I will 100% need them in college. I want to start university with an already established base of excellent study habits. This will be the introduction to a series of posts where I focus on productivity tools, studying, prioritizing, and anything else I can think of. In this post, I’ll go through my general plan for surviving next year and take a look at some of the topics I’ll explore further in different posts. 7/25/2017 0 Comments The Hell Year (Or So It Is Called)The general consensus is that junior year is by far the worst part of high school. You try to take the hardest classes, the most APs, get good grades, be involved in extracurriculars, take leadership positions, take overly important standardized tests, and try to get some sleep while you’re at it. But sometimes, it can be given a little too much importance (not that it isn’t very important), and it may not be as bad as it seems.
Not to say that this past year, my junior year, was easy, but I didn’t feel like it was quite as hellish as everyone was warning it to be. It also happened in literally the blink of an eye - this was definitely the fastest year in high school so far. But now that the school year is over and I’ve had time to reflect, here’s what happened in my junior year and how I dealt with everything that came with it, along with some general advice for all you incoming juniors. Another week has passed by like the blink of an eye (hey, I’m a poet and I didn’t even know it! Sigh, I’m such a nerd) and my experience in a lab has only gotten more interesting and fun. This update will be shorter, considering I’m not going into all the introductory stuff. (In case you missed it, I wrote an update for week 1 with all the intro stuff, check that one out here: http://tanzerina.weebly.com/blog-archive/liberty-science-center-partners-in-science-update-week-5-1)
As most of you know, I am spending this summer as a Liberty Science Center Partners in Science Scholar. I’m working 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, and 8 weeks this summer, inside a lab at the Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy at Rutgers. And it is amazingggggggg!!!!! I honestly did not think I’d like it this much. Just in one week I have learned so so much. Ahhhh, I love it. I’m doing real science. Like real science. With a possible global effect. I’m discovering things, making connections, counting cells. That last one doesn’t sound that interesting and you’re right, it’s not, but it’s science! As you can see I am very excited.
Just like Dorothy and Toto, let’s take the long winding yellow brick road down to the Emerald City, where hopefully the Wizards of Oz known as college admissions officers will grant our wish to take us back home (to Princeton University).
I finished my Common App (mostly) a couple weeks ago, (I know, I did it really early, overachiever, blah blah blah) and thought it’d be helpful to share my experience filling it out, along with things I found trouble with or took me some time to understand. This is how I filled out my Common App, and features screenshots from my account and application. Some of the pics have my info, some don’t, depending on if I remembered to take the screenshot before I filled it out or not (whoops XD). I’ll also be going through what I decided to write in most of the sections and how I determined my wording and small decisions like that. |
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