Summer Internship // MCHC/RISE-UP!

First off, I would like to apologize for not posting for a while. A lot have been going on in my life and I just couldn't keep up with everything. That's always my excuse I know, but I was trying to balance my public health internship, being adventurous in LA, and working on my secondaries. I will post more about everything I promise, but today's post will focus on the summer internship I got accepted into and how everything is going. 

In another prior post, I talked about Summer Internships and my process of applying and which one I applied to. I did not realize it at the time, but the 3 programs I applied for were all part of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention Undergraduate Public Health Scholars program. I received acceptance into MCHC/RISE-UP which stands for Maternal Child Health Careers/ Research Initiative for Student Enhancement Undergraduate Program. Yup! It's a mouthful so I will just refer to it as RISE-UP from here on out. You know a program is impressive that you have to shorten their acronym ;)! Haha joking... but not really I've seriously changed so much for the better because of this program. 

Anyways, to kick off the internship we had orientation week in Baltimore since the program is through the Kennedy Krieger Institute at Johns Hopkins. I have never met such an incredible group of individuals who are all super passionate about bettering the communities around them AND they were the funnest people I have been around. There is truly never a dull moment with them. 

Johns Hopkins hospital tour was amazing, it is incredible how much history has happened here!

During orientation week, we got to meet amazing people who are fighting health disparities and hear their stories. I loved being on Johns Hopkins' campus, the city, the people, just everything about Baltimore was perfect to me. This has definitely been a motivational force as I'm sitting here filling out the secondary for Johns Hopkins haha! 

Next up during orientation week was Atlanta to visit the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. I especially loved this week as it allowed everyone in the program to bond with one another and further enhanced my summer experience. HOWEVER! They do not call it "Hot-lanta" for no reasons! And I thought Arizona's heat was bad... Atlanta makes AZ weather feels like a walk to through the South Pole since the humidity killed me haha. 

Just the orientation week alone has made this such a loong post. I will post more this upcoming week about the work I am doing in the community through this internship! And I will also talk more about the med school application process as I am going through it right now!