March Blog

Community Service: 12 Hours 

Total Hours: 12 Hours 

This month I volunteered at Girls in STEM at Tulane event on the uptown campus of Tulane. I volunteered at this program during undergraduate and it was very rewarding to return this semester. It is a big event with many individuals across Tulane running STEM workshops. In the past, I have helped out as a group leader where I spent the entire day with a group of kids as they go to different workshops. This year, I helped out with setting up the event and getting everything ready for the students. I started volunteering the Friday before the event where I set out the event signs so the parents and students would know where to go. After putting up the signs, I helped make the bags for all the students which included a couple of snacks, water, a T-shirt and tags for the different groups. This part took the longest, but with the help of the other volunteers we were able to finish everything. Before leaving on Friday, I organized the group name tags and put them into their correct rooms. The next day, was the start of the event which is always very busy. The event starts with students checking in and making sure all the volunteers are assigned to the right place. I showed some volunteers where to go and helped kids with their first activity which was the scavenger hunt. Next, I went to all the rooms and set up the orientation presentations for the students. After all of this, I had the task of taking pictures for the ending presentation which would include every photos from every group and activity. I had a couple of people help me and by lunch time we had finished taking most of the photos. It was during lunch that I got started on making the ending presentation for the students where I made slides of all the students and activities. This was the most time consuming part, but very rewarding as all the kids love to see their pictures at the end. After a full day of volunteering, I was exhausted, but it is always fun being apart of this big event. 

Outside of volunteering, we took our last module exam for Medical Pharmacology. As the program comes to end, I am trying my best to finish strong and make sure everything is done. Next month, I hope to do more volunteering and prepare for our final exam. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

September Blog

--  My first month of the pharmacology program has moved by quickly. We already took our third exam last week and it was the most challenging so far. I appreciated how the amount of material before each exam was slightly increased to prepare us for larger content exams. Our graduate medical pharmacology class is my favorite as we learn both about the science of drugs and how they can be used clinically. Overall, I believe I am finally adjusting to this program and able to keep up with the material. The most surprising aspect of this program was the exposure to research. Our seminar class with Dr. Katakam has taught me a significant amount about research. As we meet more of the pharmacology faculty, we also get a chance to learn about their research. I found it quite valuable that our professors are able to teach us about pharmacology while also pushing us to think critically about topics. One example of this was with Dr. Datta and her lectures on antibiotics. Not only did we unders...
Read more

February Blog

 Community Service Hours: 0  This month was a mix of exams, presentations, and Mardi Gras. It was challenging to balance everything, but by this point in the semester I felt ready to complete everything. We had our first exam for our cellular control class which was the longest out of the three we took this month. It was hard to remember topics from our first lecture which was in January, but reviewing my notes and rewatching the lectures helped me for the exam. My favorite part of this class was how we reviewed majority of the cell cycle and spent time on cell apoptosis. Dr. Chandra's lecture was the most interesting as I learned about the different drugs that take advantage of autophagy to control cancer. In addition to exams, I had presentations for both Dr. Katakam and Dr. Mostany. My presentation in our Neuropharmacology class went well but required a lot of planning and preparation. The paper we chose overlapped with our endocrine block and we talked about the use of GLP...
Read more

January Blog

 --  Our first month back has been once again a busy one. Compared to last semester we have more presentations this semester. We still have our graduate medical pharmacology class this semester which is still my favorite class. We focused on reproductive pharmacology and will continue with endocrine pharmacology later this month. Due to our new classes and presentations, our exams are more spaced out this semester giving me a little more time to study.  One of our new classes this semester is Neuropharmacology taught by Dr. Mostany which focuses on research manuscripts relating to nervous system disorders. The most interesting part of this class is how we read papers with proposed mechanism of actions of new drugs. I always enjoyed learning about how drugs can act through different mechanisms to activate receptors and reading about new ones is interesting. The challenging part of this semester is presenting the research papers we find. However, talking in front of others ...
Read more