Academics

Intended Major: Biology

Intended Career: Physician Assistant

In eighth grade my father was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. It stopped the world around us. My father was hospitalized for constant chemotherapy treatments. My mother felt torn between staying at his bedside and staying with my brothers and I at home. My whole family hit rock bottom. We didn't know where to look to for hope.

All of the doctors who helped my father along the way through his diagnosis, treatments, and remission gave my family the hope we needed. The oncologist explained to my family and I how the cancer was affecting my father. The doctors truly did give us hope.

I was thankful to the doctors for helping my father beat his cancer and caring about our family. This experience helped shape my career aspiration. Not only do I want to be successful, I want to make a difference in other people's lives.

GPA: 3.9 SAT: 1760 ACT: 27

Personally, I see GPA and standardized test scores as numbers. I acknowledge that they help demonstrate a student's potential. What they don't do is measure a person's determination and passion to learn. Below is a representation of my will to learn, shown by my career goal, rigorous schedule and examples of my class assignments.

Background to my Career Goal

Courses

In high school, my course load has consisted of challenging honors classes. I have also taken AP classes, including:

AP U.S. History
AP World History
AP English Language & Composition
AP Chemistry
PLTW Biomedical Sciences (AP weighted)

I have made sure that I continue to push myself academically by taking rigorous courses my senior year, including:

Psychology (dual enrollment at Carroll Community College)
Sociology (dual enrollment at Carroll Community College)
AP English Literature & Composition
AP Biology
Honors Calculus AB

The class that challenged me the most in high school was AP Chemistry. The class moved at an accelerated pace, one I hadn't been used to. There was very little in-class instruction, which caused me to teach myself most of the curriculum. In addition to learning the content outside of class, projects and lab reports had to be simultaneously worked on. From this challenging class, I learned how to be proactive. To the right, you can find an attached lab report and my final project which demonstrate the variety and difficulty in assignments that were completed for this class.

Lab Report Final Project

I attend Carroll County Career & Technology Center for the program PLTW Biomedical Sciences. I started the program the spring of my junior year and I am currently continuing the program. My junior year I completed courses in the program called Principles of Biomedical Science (PBS) and Human Body Systems (HBS). My senior year I will be completing courses in the program called Medical Interventions (MI) and Biomedical Innovations (BI). This program has reinforced my aspiration to be a physican assistant. Attached to the right are samples of assignments I have completed in PBS and HBS, showing I have excelled in this program.

AP Chemistry

PBS HBS

Blood Pressure Case Report

Lab Report

The PLTW Biomedical Sciences program has taught me excellent lab skills. In Medical Interventions (MI), we completed a comprehensive involving bacterial transformation, protein purification, protein chromatography, and a protein electrophoresis. To the left are pictures during the process of this lab.

The bacteria with the pGLO plasmids only glows on the LB/ampicillin/arabinose plate. Arabinose is a sugar that is required to turn on the transcription of Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP), allowing the bacteria to glow.

In the last step of the protein chromatography, elution buffer is used to separate out the GFP from the rest of the supernatant.

Awards & Achievements

Consecutive Honor Roll
National Honor Society
National Honor Society Junior Representative (2014)
Scholar Athlete Award

Personal Reference

I have been a part of the PLTW Biomedical Program for two years. For two of the classes in the program, Mrs. Kathleen Wojcik has been my teacher. She has seen my work ethic in the classroom and has observed how I am able to balance my school work and extracurricular activities. Attached is her letter of recommendation.

My dad in the hospital for a chemo treatment.