Whitney's College Adventures

Hi Everyone, Keerthi here!

Now that you know all about Whitney’s high school life from Hina’s Blog, continue reading to find out more about her current college adventures !

Upon arriving on campus, Whitney’s first impression was that the campus was very big, however she was very active in shrinking it down. She lived in Honors housing in Buckley Hall, which she describes as a tight knit community, and already knew a few other students from high school. As she walked around campus on the first day of the semester with her dorm mates, they helped each other find their classes. Whitney also joined a First Year Experience class for students in her major, where she met other students taking the similar courses. Whitney is still close with the friends she met in her freshman dorm. She lives with them in the Honors Learning Community in Alumni Complex and Whitney’s randomly assigned roommate from freshman year, is still her roommate now.

Whitney found her niche by joining the Sailing Team, Honors Council, Pre-Med Society, and Colleges Against Cancer (relay for life), for which she is the survivorship co-chair.

Whitney’s favorite class was organic chemistry partly because of  Professor Michael Smith; he offers nine hours of office hours per week and wrote the textbook for the class. Another of her favorite classes was favorite class was Patient and Healer in which she learned how to take patient histories. It was very relevant to her future field of study (medicine) so she especially enjoyed hearing the stories from the different doctors who spoke to her class.

Whitney is currently working in a lab with Dr.Kannadia, who’s research focuses on gene splicing in the retina, She conducts this research along with fellow tour leader, Nisarg. Right now she is learning the different lab procedures and is planning to do more research in the lab in the future. Whitney hopes to take her interest in neuroscience abroad this summer by doing the neuroscience program in Sala Manka. Spain. She is excited to travel and be immersed in Spanish culture.

Whitney wants the rest of her time at college to be as fun as her first 1 ½ semesters. After graduation she automatically has a spot in the UConn Medical School as long as she maintains a 3.5 GPA and gets a score of 30 on the MCATS. Whitney’s dream is to be an internist or family doctor, which is right up her alley as she loves talking to people and hearing their stories.