Reflections

Autumn Quarter Reflection:

At UW, I have been able to explore what I want to study, and have been able to take fast-paced classes in subjects that I am interested to. Being out of high school, I have learned that I tend to try to commit to too much all at once, and I have been fighting that tendency by trying to slow down and spend more time with the people that I love. To do that, I have worked with The Rhapsody Project, a community devoted to exploring heritage and music through an anti-racist lens, and have helped design and teach a Yiddish music and heritage program through the organization. I have gotten to connect with people through this organization over the past seven years, and I have also been able to connect with my friends and study partners on campus. I have also learned that I have more options than I previously had considered, such as possibly becoming pre-med to pursue being a doctor for trans children. I had never seriously considered applying for medical school before college, but seeing other people planning on applying, and having people around me believe in me and my ability to succeed in college has made me realize that it is a possibility for me, and a place where I could go on to make a real difference in the world around me, for future generations of people like myself.

Through my first quarter, I was surprised at how well I was able to manage everything about entering college. Entering college, I was worried about the academics at UW being too challenging, and about having difficulty reaching out for help when I needed it. I found a study group for my biology class, and that has been quite helpful for understanding the material and having people to go to with questions about assignments and about the material itself. However, being able to make it to my classes on time has been difficult because of how physically far apart they are from each other, and I have learned to not schedule classes close together when they will take a long time to get between.

In the future, I hope to investigate more events and clubs on-campus, such as Project Sunshine, an organization that sends people to help and entertain sick children. I also want to explore music on-campus, such as the orchestras here and small ensembles that I can form with other musicians around me. And, by the end of my first year, I hope to have a plan about what I want to do after college, and have several activities that I am engaged in to help set me up towards that path. For example, if I do decide to become a wildlife biologist, I want to find volunteer positions in conservation work in the Seattle area, and if I do decide to become pre-med, I want to look into shadowing a doctor and research trans healthcare on my own. Next year, I also hope to pursue research at the university, hopefully in animal sciences or cognition.

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Winter Quarter Reflection:

Going back to online school at the beginning of winter quarter was stressful for a lot of my friends, but it actually worked pretty well for me. Hybrid learning lessened my anxiety about COVID, especially in large classes like BIO 200 (the second class in the introductory biology sequence). I was disappointed to miss in-person biology labs for part of the quarter, though.

This quarter, I started working on research with Team Squirrel. It has been amazing so far -- I've gotten to learn how to use a CT scanner on squirrel humeri and femurs, and how to use 3D Slicer to turn scans into images of bones. I've also learned how to measure their skeletons, and have met incredibly brilliant and wonderful people on the research team and in Dr. Santana's lab. I wasn't expecting to get to work on research in winter quarter, and wasn't expecting to get to work on a project like this. Hopefully I can continue research in future years with the lab, possibly using what I learn about analyzing bone morphology to look at bone morphology of echidnas and platypus.

I also tried taking classes that are not in my major, including Ways of Feeling (a class about linguistics and emotion across culture and gender lines) and Environmental Ethics. This second class turned out to be much harder than I expected, since I had never taken a philosophy class before or written a philosophy paper, and on my first paper, I got my worst grade on an assignment so far in college. I spent a lot more time and effort on the second term paper, going in to office hours for my first time in college, and ended up doing much better on the second paper.

Spring Quarter Reflection:

Academically, spring quarter was likely my favorite quarter so far. In BIO 220, we got to inflate sheep lungs in one of our labs, dissect frogs (which was not my favorite, but still cool), and handle and dissect pig hearts. In the psychology of racism class that I took, I learned a lot, and came up with next steps about how to further continue anti-racist work within myself and for my communities. And, in HONORS 391, I learned about Seattle's Indigenous history and got to build a much deeper understanding of Capitol Hill, the neighborhood of Seattle that I grew up in.

This quarter, I continued research with Team Squirrel and ended up co-presenting on squirrel body size and shape across ecotypes (i.e. flying, ground, and tree squirrels) at UW's research symposium. I also kept learning about and teaching Yiddish music and dance with The Rhapsody Project, getting to go to a dance event at Folklife to learn about and practice dancing. This summer, I'm incredibly excited to be working on a research project about sexual dimorphism in carnivorans at the American Museum of Natural History. I can't even imagine what adventures I have in store there!

Moving away for the summer, away from my friends and family, was a bit difficult, but it taught me to appreciate the little moments I get with the people that I care about. I slowed down and let myself enjoy swimming with friends or walking my friends back to their dorms at night and listening to them sing together with this pure, unbridled sense of joy. Those moments are ones I wished could have gone on forever, so that I could keep seeing my friends and so that I didn't have to say goodbye for months, but something about slowing down and cherishing every second made those moments so much more special.

In future years, I want to get more involved in outdoors activities. A couple of options for this are the UW Farm and YES Farm. Throughout my first year, I spent a lot of time looking for beavers and otters in the arboretum and Union Bay Natural Area, but I would like to find ways to spend time outside with others. I also want to set aside more time to just be with my friends and come up with more ideas for ways we can all hang out together.

Autumn Quarter 2022 Reflection:

I had a rather challenging quarter academically and personally. One of my classes, Leadership, Democracy, and a More Thoughtful Public, required two papers per week on readings that I found rather challenging as a STEM major. I was also taking two upper-level biology classes and organic chemistry at the same time, while also tutoring someone, working, and writing a research paper.

I learned the importance of making sure I spend time relaxing in addition to pushing myself, so that I can recharge. By the end of the quarter, I decided to make a commitment to take better care of myself and to make sure I budget time to pursue my interests on my own into my schedule. Additionally, I learned how helpful it is to have a regular, scheduled commitment with friends, something that is always there to look forward to at the end of a long week.

Winter Quarter 2023 Reflection:

Overall this quarter, I focused mostly on academics, research, tutoring, and my work with the Rhapsody Project. I took two interdisciplinary honors courses, one of which focused on emerging infectious diseases, and the other focused on gender, diplomacy, and human rights. I found both classes incredibly interesting, especially since both classes allowed me some freedom in what I wrote about for research projects. I ended up deciding to take another class next quarter with the same professor who taught the class on emerging infectious diseases. I am hoping to study chytridiomycosis in frogs in that spring quarter class as an ad hoc project because of my intersecting interests in anurans (frogs and toads) and in conservation.

Additionally, I took a class on conservation of large vertebrates, where I got to learn about the realities of large vertebrate conservation in detail, from whale-ship collisions to issues of fencing and trophy hunting. One of my favorite parts about studying biology is learning new facts about animals. What I learned in this class can hopefully help inform how I address conservation issues in my future work. I hope to continue learning about these topics throughout the rest of my time as an undergraduate, in graduate school, and in my career as a researcher, especially as climate change further threatens many species.

Focusing so strongly on academics once again showed me the importance of committing to time with friends and time to pursue my interests. Towards the end of the quarter, I started playing guitar for a bit before I did anything else in my day, and noticed a really positive impact on my life. I also started making sure to schedule in some time with my dog, Thor, each day because he is a good boy.

Spring Quarter 2023 Reflection:

This quarter, I ended up focusing on academics again, finishing up organic chemistry. Finishing the organic chemistry series was a major accomplishment for me, since that series was by far the most difficult series of classes I have taken in college so far. I also took a class on the pathobiology of emerging infectious diseases, going into more depth from an honors class that I took from the same professor. I learned more deeply about the mechanisms behind infectious diseases, and I worked on an ad hoc project about chytridiomycosis in frogs and toads, reading dozens of studies about the disease in the process. I also branched out into a course on comparative animal physiology, which was my first course on physiology.

Finally, I took an honors class taught by Dr. Devin Naar on immigration from the Ottoman Empire and the development of racism in the U.S.. While I have learned a lot about the history of race and racism through past courses, my job at the Rhapsody Project, and other resources and experiences, I learned a lot from Dr. Naar's class. One particularly memorable moment was when we went on a field trip to the Central District, where I went to school for most of my life. Learning about the histories of Black and immigrant communities from the neighborhood was fascinating, and I would love to learn more in Dr. Naar's classes in the future.

Autumn Quarter 2023 Reflection:

During autumn quarter, I decided to postpone taking physics in order to take a class on Geographic Information Systems (GIS). GIS is used heavily in conservation research, so I decided to take a course on the GIS software ArcGIS in order to learn more and prepare for research that I wanted to help with. The class was entirely online and asynchronous, which made it especially challenging in some ways, but I found that I enjoyed using the software and learned a lot to apply to future research. In addition, I worked on data collection and analysis this quarter in order to prepare for my presentation at SICB after this quarter,

Overall, I ended up fairly overscheduled this quarter, with a heavy courseload while preparing for the Benaroya Hall concert with the Rhapsody Project. I decided that, next quarter, I will take fewer credits and apply for a volunteer amphibian monitoring program through Woodland Park Zoo, so that I can get experience in fieldwork with amphibians, since I want to study them as a wildlife biologist.

Winter Quarter 2024 Reflection:

This quarter, I learned a lot more about how to code in R, both through research projects and taking Q SCI 381. I hope to learn more about research methods in R through Q SCI classes that I take next year.

On top of learning more about R, I started volunteering at Woodland Park Zoo's amphibian monitoring program. The data that we collect through this program is used by local researchers in studies about amphibian conservation. I am especially interested in this program both because of its connections to my career interests (wildlife biology and studying anurans) and the fact that it is a citizen science program. As someone who hopes to build accessibility in science, learning about citizen science programs from the perspective of a volunteer is very useful to me.

I started spending more time in nature looking for wildlife, both through a trip to Lopez Island and through spending more time in green spaces in South Seattle (such as Seward Park and the SHADOW Lake Nature Preserve).Additionally, I applied for and got into a field course through the fisheries program at UW and the Alaska Salmon Program in Bristol Bay, AK this summer. Through the field course, I will learn about ecological research methods in aquatic ecology, which is highly applicable to what I hope to study in my PhD research (how chytridiomycosis impacts frogs and their ecosystems). This program will help me learn more about field methods in aquatic wildlife research, and will supplement my other coursework in wildlife biology and research methods.