Year 2
Time flew! I was expecting second year to be more difficult for a lot of reasons (think organic chemistry and physics) but I never expected a pandemic that would shift me out of Clifton and back into my childhood home for the last two months of the year. First year felt a lot more broad as far as concepts went in the classroom, while second year was a lot more specialized and time-consuming for studying.
However, second year also introduced a lot more involvement outside the classroom. Transitioning into a new lab, as well as the exec boards of GlobeMed and the Beekeeping Club kept my free time super limited for the first few weeks of my year. Working in Dr. Hassett's lab was pretty daunting, as he had just patented a drug the year before that could, among other things, wipe out antibiotic-resistant super bacteria in cystic fibrosis patients. My friend and roommate Patrick and I both started in the lab in August, directly after my late departure from my SURF lab at Cincinnati Children's. Wet lab research was new to me and super interesting, however in mid-October, we were let go from the lab due to some issues that were above our paygrade ($0). I do think that being released from research helped me better evaluate where my passions and skills lie as far as public health and advocacy goes.
From there, I started channeling my extra time into an upcoming GlobeMed event that I was putting together, the Community Health Speaker Series. We hosted several esteemed local health care workers from different professions in this series and it was super cool to hear them discuss the many ways local health is global health. It was also my first real taste of the difficulty of coordinating, advertising, and executing an event of this scale, while maintaining a line of communication with different healthcare offices in Cincinnati. The event was a lot of work and stress, but it came together beautifully with the help of my friends, mentors, and committee. GlobeMed has always been a welcoming community and it's nice to have a family away from home. I think that's part of the decision I made to apply for the Grassroots Onsite Work Internship (GrOW) for this summer. GrOW is a six week experience in which, we travel to Thailand and work with our partner organization, Social Action for Women and Children (SAW), to help determine how GlobeMed at UC can better meet their needs and help them strengthen their programs. After the application and interviews were completed, I along with four other, created the GrOW team, and started meeting to plan the logistics and goals of our summer projects, as well as a travel agenda around Asia before and after our six week internship. Unfortunately, as the Covid-19 pandemic grew, we made a team decision to cancel the trip.
Later that week, UC announced we would be virtual for the rest of the semester. As I lived in Scioto Hall, that meant going home to Mansfield. This was even more heartbreaking for two reasons: 1) A lot of the college experience is wrapped up in interacting with other students with similar struggles and 2) they made the announcement an hour after I had started the 3 hour drive home for spring break.
School ended up becoming my main focus after that. Learning organic chemistry was a challenge unlike any other I had ever faced in the classroom, but upon returning home in a world where we were urged (for good reason) not to go about our normal lives, it became the only real bit of consistency in daily life. Learning the patterns of electrons and reagents was not the most fun in the world, but recognizing how it applies to the biochemistry of our bodies helped a lot to motivate myself. I was also thankful that I ad a stable home environment where my safety was assured during these uncertain times as unemployment skyrocketed and hospitals were overwhelmed. It also helped seeing how professors and other students were for the most part understanding about each other's circumstances during social distancing. School felt bland, but consistent, so my life had some level of structure still. Then March flew by super quickly, April as well, and all of a sudden classes were over. The structure was gone.
Over the course of May, I've begun both good and bad habits; I get 9 hours of sleep a night, run daily, and eat a lot cleaner, but I also watch a ton of TV, play video games, and sit in my room for most of the day. While I'm appreciative of this level of freedom that normally doesn't occur in a pre-med's life, I know there are better and more fulfilling uses of my time. One of the most important ways I've found to be involved has been the recent rejuvenation of the Black Lives Matter movement. I've been spending my time actively working to become a much more educated and beneficial ally to the African American community, as well as understanding ways in which we can dismantle the failed system and leaders that have been kept in place for far too long. This is the year we placed a pandemic, police brutality, and incompetent leadership in the spotlight - and we aren't even halfway through. 2020 has been a rollercoaster and it won't calm down any time soon.