Last summer, I got the fortunate experience to be at the Mayo Clinic as a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellow. I have done a lot of research in my undergraduate career but none of them are medical-related. So I thought that the Mayo SURF Program would help me gain a lot of hands-on medical research experience. It turned out to be all of that and more. I met amazing friends who I still keep in contact with, gained an amazing mentor who put up with my ridiculousness the whole summer, and learned sooo much about cancer immunology. I can still talk your ears off about my research over the summer, but I won't haha.
I was super naive last summer and I did not have a clue how summer internships worked at all and I was not even sure what I was signing myself up for when I applied to the Mayo SURF Program. Strangely enough, I was still super unsure about my summer plans when I applied because I did not know which MCAT test I was going to take. So after applying to the Mayo SURF Program, I realized I wanted to take the old MCAT since I would probably just start crying during the test if it took 7 hours like the new MCAT. So I stopped applying to internships after I submitted my application for the Mayo SURF Program and completely forgot about it. Fast-forward to mid-March, I was sure that I was going to spend my entire summer locked inside the house studying for my MCAT when I got a call from my would-be Mayo Mentor. The call was to let me know that I had been accepted into the program. I was a mixture of shock, excited, and confused - shock because it's the FREAKING MAYO CLINIC!, excited because it's the FREAKING MAYO CLINIC!, and confused because I was sure there were so many other much more qualified applicants to the program.
Admittedly, this weird mixtures of feelings wore off and I got scared of what I should do. I had spent the last couple of months preparing for a summer of MCAT self-studying. I called my best friends to ask for their opinion, which did not help at all because my 2 best friends had completely different opinions. I either sacrifice my MCAT score (since accepting the internship would mean no time to study) or sacrifice a really great opportunity that could open a lot of doors for me. After weighing my options and realizing what a once in a lifetime chance doing research at the Mayo Clinic is, I decided that I would attempt to do both - Mayo Clinic SURF and MCAT. You can read all about this on my first couple of blog posts back in May talking about "The Summer that Started It All..."
Admittedly, this weird mixtures of feelings wore off and I got scared of what I should do. I had spent the last couple of months preparing for a summer of MCAT self-studying. I called my best friends to ask for their opinion, which did not help at all because my 2 best friends had completely different opinions. I either sacrifice my MCAT score (since accepting the internship would mean no time to study) or sacrifice a really great opportunity that could open a lot of doors for me. After weighing my options and realizing what a once in a lifetime chance doing research at the Mayo Clinic is, I decided that I would attempt to do both - Mayo Clinic SURF and MCAT. You can read all about this on my first couple of blog posts back in May talking about "The Summer that Started It All..."
This summer, I wanted to try and apply some summer internships as well but since I got a lot of research experience last summer I wanted to venture into the Public Health realm this summer. I have always been passionate about the topic of public health and growing up in an impoverished country really helped me to gain perspective in this aspect. I had a friend in the Columbia Summer Public Health Scholars Program and he had such an amazing experience and would not stop raving about how the people and the knowledge he gained really changed his view-point and deepened his appreciation for the health-care field. So, here are the summer internships I have applied to so far:
- Columbia Public Health Scholars Program
- MCHC/RISE-UP at the Kennedy Krieger Institute
- Future Public Health Leaders Program at University of Michigan
I found out these programs through applying for the Columbia program first, if you guys want to learn more about summer internships follow this link below. It is such a helpful website that one of my friends discovered! Happy summer internship applying!
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