Staying up late at night every day doesn’t seem too out of the ordinary for a teenager during the summer—except, when I did it for two weeks straight, I was learning engineering and its disciplines through Zoom.
I first heard of the Tufts Summer Pre-College course through my guidance counselor, whom I was bugging for any extracurriculars relating to engineering. By this point, I knew I wanted to be a biomedical engineering and I really needed to buckle down on my exposure to it. She offered me this course and said I could be nominated by my school if I wanted it, so I said yes.
I did the application, filled out the forms, then promptly forgot about it until July, where I got emails about the upcoming program. I wasn’t expecting too much, since the whole “college campus” feel was unfortunately out of the equation, but I knew I wanted to have fun and learn.
Getting my schedule gave me a shock because I had to flip my whole day around, since the Philippines and Massachusetts have a 12-hour difference. I had school co-curriculars and other engagements during the day, so I rarely got sleep throughout the whole experience.
But despite my zombie-like demeanor during the program, I really had fun and enjoyed my time with everyone online. The lab tours were one of my favorites, where I got a glimpse of what (hopefully) my future would be like. Another favorite of mine was working on the final project, as I got to really explore my chosen field (biomed) through what I learned about cancer. If given the chance, I would do it all over again, no questions asked. Thank you Tufts for being so welcoming and offering this program.