So, you want to be a scientist . . .

We all know that personal interests and academic plans are shaped a lot by the teachers, professors, and peers we interact with on our rides through academia. If you have a brilliant science teacher or math teacher in high school and you do well in his or her class you are probably more likely to continue to study that field in college and later in life. As a freshman in high school, I fell in love with biology by the virtue of a particularly brilliant teacher who had spent the vast majority of her thirty-odd years exploring the life sciences as a nurse and researcher. Her expertise in that regard was inspiring and helped her to portray unique insight into the practical relevance of the various areas of our studies. The point is that by the end of my freshman year in high school I was hooked on science, and there was no turning back.

So, the question is, what do you do now? It's summer and school's not in session until late August or September and you know the material of your biology course so soundly that you would ace the final if it was handed to you today. No worries. I spent the summer after my freshman year in high school teaching preschool through elementary students about ecology at my local Audubon society. It was a rewarding experience that I would probably never do again, but I really enjoyed explaining the basics of wildlife ecology in the Northeastern US to a crowd of fidgeting listeners (seriously). I learned a lot, and I discovered that I really enjoy both teaching and the hands-on aspects of science.

But, then again, I was fortunate enough to have that experience. So, what do you do if you can't spend six hours a day in the woods with a troop of six-year-olds explaining the differences between amphibians and reptiles? The best advice that I can think of is to go online and google your brains out. Do you live on Cape Cod? Well, then email the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. Are you on the west coast? Find a local biotech company. At this stage in the game, I don't think that it is necessary to start emailing professors and asking for research internships, etc. You are still really new to the field of science, in general. I think that its time to enjoy yourself on the sidelines. To read about research before you start doing it, and to help inspire others to get as excited about amino acids as you are.

No matter how intensely passionate you are about a given subject, over time your interests will change. As a sophomore in high school, I rediscovered space science, and I was going to be a physicist. Actually, I was going to be a chemist first, but that phase did not last very long (I hated my high school chemistry class). In middle school and when I was younger I wanted to be an astronaut and as I delved further into biology, I realized that I preferred to study systems in terms of inorganic activity versus life itself. I started to scan the internet for opportunities to explore this new interest outside of school and stumbled upon a program at MIT.

This is where it helps to be persistent. As you explore your interests it helps to find as many opportunities as possible to surround yourself with people as excited about various ideas as you are. After all, this is what science is all about. The program I found at MIT called the Chandra Astrophysics Institute was only offered to students in the greater Boston area (I lived about an hour outside of that region). I contacted the program in December when I was told that they weren't accepting non-regional applicants at this time. But, in March, I received another phone call inviting me to apply, and I was psyched. After a year learning about astrophysics and stars, I attained a research project with a CAI adviser for the following school year.

The moral of this story is that if you are a high school student interested in science and you have little to no scientific experience, find science-related activities to keep yourself occupied with whether this be during the summer or the school year. I think that a lot of college admissions sites are tossing around the idea of actually conducting 'real' research during high school. But I have found in my experience that there is a lot of time in the future that you can allocate for research as an undergraduate and later. Working in small science related summer camps or participating in one yourself can be an equally valuable experience. Through my summer camp job and my time with CAI I learned what areas of science interest me the most and, eventually, found a 'real' research position where I am now working on a project that is scientifically-relevant and may benefit the scientific community. So don't allow yourself to get caught up in this charade of emailing professors and begging for positions mopping up their labs. There's time for that! Instead, just get out into the science community and soak up as much information as you can. It will only help you to refine your interests and make you a better scientist.