laboratory skills, data analysis

I am a rising sophomore at Franklin and Marshall College, in Lancaster. I haven't declared my major yet, but I plan to focus on neuroscience, with a minor in english. I want to combine these two interests into a career, preferably one in which I can have a positive impact on people.

I love how the intrinsic nature of science is to progress and continue to evolve our knowledge. Neuroscience is particularly interesting to me because of its emphasis on the complexity of the human body.

I've always had dual interests in the scientific sphere and in the area of english and literature, and I recently realized that instead of giving one of my passions up, I can instead integrate both into a career. I'm not sure yet what exactly I want that career to be, but I'm hoping to explore as many options as possible.

I've always loved literature and writing, but I don't know when exactly I became interested in science as a whole. Both my parents were research scientists and have moved on to be science educators, so I grew up in a house where many dinner conversations devolved into discussion of some biological phenomenon (which went right over my head). I remember my parents pushing me to do science fair experiments that actually interested me, like taking samples of the pond water from our backyard and looking at the microorganisms under a microscope. Because of my family, I always vaguely assumed I would end up in a scientific career. Although this does seem to be holding true, I stumbled into my own science passion on my own, in high school. I can pinpoint my experiences in AP Biology and AP Psychology as exciting my interest in neuroscience. I vividly remember reading passages in my Psych textbook, and being awestruck by the carefully described complexity of some specific pathway or mechanism of the human brain, an excitement that I had never really connected to science before. I still don't know how exactly I want to manifest this interest in my career, but I hope to incorporate it in some way with writing.

readingvolunteeringreadingvolunteeringrunninghikingartmusic

My two general chemistry courses instilled in me a solid basis in scientific understanding that I've built on and applied to other areas. From those classes, I learned how to adopt a rational and technical approach to other subjects, and how to draw connections between different concepts to demonstrate the interconnectedness of science.