I'm currently taking a gap year for the 2015-2016 school year. I plan to enroll as a freshman and start college in the fall of 2016. I deferred college for one year to pursue a three-phased work, shadow and volunteer plan where I will work on an oyster farm, shadow medical professionals and volunteer-teach in Kenya, Africa.
Winter - Spring 2016: Service Learning in Naro Maru, Kenya, Africa
I will be teaching sixth and seventh graders at three different primary schools. I will teach English, math, earth science, physical education and Kiswahili, the native language where I will a student rather than a teacher. In addition to teaching, there will be community-based infrastructure projects and I plan to donate soccer equipment and run a lacrosse clinic and donate lacrosse equipment, a sport they have never seen or played.
Program details can be found here
Service Learning in Kenya Video
Fall - Winter 2015: Career Shadowing
I have an interest in personalized medicine (genetics, pharmacology, Big Data, Internet of Everything). I’m shadowing people doing interesting things within the various fields that are intersecting around personalized medicine - physicians, anesthesiologists, geneticists, entrepreneurs, a President of “orphan” drug companies, healthcare administrators, a senior vice president at Oracle, sales managers at wireless tower companies, a Managing Director at a capital markets company, etc. I’m really excited about heading to the University of Michigan to see the work a graduate student is doing to prevent cancer. The goal is to further clarify my vision so I can find the University that will be the best academic and athletic fit.
Summer - Fall 2015: Fishers Island Oyster, Fishers Island, NY
Lived and worked on a family-owned and sustainably managed suspension-culture oyster farm.
