Retrospective Reflection
My Journey as an Honors Student + Next Steps
Reflection
As a senior student, I have much more perspective on both my past and future than I did as a freshman. I heard about the honors college in my first-ever fall semester. I was a bit lost in the magnitude of my goals and unsure of myself. The honors college was a tool that could help me reorient the trajectory of my academic goals. I enrolled in the H200 course for new honors students expecting to do just that, and instead, I found something much more than just academic accompaniments along the way. In that course, I created my very first ePortfolio.
Artifact 1 in this current ePortfolio encompasses most of my H200 ePortfolio with additional reflection. Looking back, I notice that a lot of my
focus was centered around my apprehensions and impostor syndrome, but pushing through it. This is particularly evident in my journey map, where I mention leading a chemistry recitation for the first time and getting better at driving despite my fears.
In addition, my original personal statements also highlighted in Artifact 1 have evolved. Although the core of idea of my desires to incorporate my creative side into my pursuit of medicine remain the same, I have a better understanding of how to actually execute this goal. My engaged leadership plan was
the start of this journey. With my heavy stem focused courses, I had the beginnings of burnout. To prevent this, I attempted to look for a club focused on light hearted crafts to relax but I couldn't find one. I reached out to my introductory biology professor Dr. Marrs and she responded with how to create to create my own student organization on campus. The process seemed rather daunting, but she really condensed it into simple steps.
"Starting a student organization is not that hard, you just need to have five officers and a group of people who want to get together and meet!" - Dr. Kathleen Marrs
This approach has shaped my ideology greatly. Whenever a goal seems too out of reach, I instead restructure it in my head into something simple. By creating my own student organization, I learned a lot of responsibility. I had to conduct interviews to find my officers, pitch to advisors for their support of the club, and organize meetings from scratch. Engaged learning is a major tenet of the honors college, and becoming the president of the Creative Crafting Club was a perfect example of it. Most of our members were also school of science student like myself and my officers, and they all understood the often overlooked connection between creativity and the sciences in their own diverse ways. This realized the community I hoped to build from day one.
This approach has shaped my ideology greatly. Whenever a goal seems too out of reach, I instead restructure it in my head into something simple. By creating my own student organization, I learned a lot of responsibility. I had to conduct interviews to find my officers, pitch to advisors for their support of the club, and organize meetings from scratch. Engaged learning is a major tenet of the honors college, and becoming the president of the Creative Crafting Club was a perfect example of it. Most of our members were also school of science student like myself and my officers, and they all understood the often overlooked connection between creativity and the sciences in their own diverse ways. This realized the community I hoped to build from day one.
With Dr. Andres Tovar
American Chemical Society (ACS)
With Dr. Andres Tovar
Another value of the honors college is academic excellence. As a pre-med student, I know I had to maintain my grades alongside building up my resume. Since I was required to complete a lot of honors contracts, the process helped me gain more confidence in reaching out to professors and giving an elevator pitch. This developed interpersonal skill therefore was key in applying to an undergraduate lab on campus. My lab focused on creating biodegradable thermoplastics. For the first time, I got to contribute new data in the field of research as opposed to cross analyzed already published articles. I also learned to cooperate with a team and give research poster presentations. During conferences, people would walk up and ask about our work. I was able to give succinct summaries and extrapolate future implementations. By pushing
Top 100
past my imposter syndrome through the help of the H200 course, I was able to achieve what I set out to do and so much more by not letting go of opportunity.
I was able to look at the accumulation of all my achievements by receiving the Top 100 award two times, once as a junior and now as a senior. The application process for the award was essentially a resume building exercise with a personal statement to summarize, I also had to ask for a recommendation letter, which was an easy process due to the connections I had built with my professors as I worked on honors contracts with them outside of regular class requirements.
Next Steps After Graduation
In the summer of my junior year, I prepared to take the MCAT (Medical College Admission Test). My undergraduate courses prepared me for both learning content and understanding the studying strategies that worked for me. After taking the test, I entered in the application cycle for medical school. It was very similar to the Top 100 application, and thus I felt more prepared. I wrote about my experiences, crafted my personal statement, and reached out for multiple recommendation letters. After this step, I moved on to secondary applications for my preferred med school. I then got an interview invitation to my top school, where I discussed the leadership goals I had undertaken. I underscored my belief that creativity does have a huge interlink with medicine, which is evident through the experiences I undertook in my undergraduate journey as highlighted in this ePortfolio. Finally, after all this, I got my accpentance letter to my top medical school! As I continue on as a future med student, I will take this new found confidence and drive to tackle seemingly impossible goals while maintaining my creative spirit.
