We have yet to release our next mentor spotlight - but see if you can guess who they are from these clues! This time, we've talked to an Integrated Sciences student about medicine, his research, and joining ISCI under a short deadline. With tips, comments and quips, we bring you Jason - a translation for his name, "he who heals," couldn't be more accurate for this UBC student's aspirations. There was no specific drug, or illness, that you wanted to research, going into [a potential degree in] pharmacology?
Knowing that Dr. ******* is as good as she is with people, asking questions, and answering them, would you believe that her PhD was in organic chemistry, physical chemistry, education or business? J: I know her educational background. So she got a BSc in chemistry, a Master’s in wood chemistry I believe, and a PhD in education. Did you know about Dr. ******* educational background before you picked her for a mentor? J: I don’t exactly remember when I realized she had a PhD in education… I think I might have [known]. The story of how I picked her as my mentor, I think it was [began] the end of last semester, like when we were done exams and everything. I went back to review my exam, I was chatting, talking about the semester and the course, and [I told her] that I might be interested in Integrated Sciences. She said “oh, I’m a mentor for Integrated Sciences, did you know that?” and I said “no, I didn’t,” and we got to talking. So at that time I was thinking of switching to Integrated, and I remembered the deadline was February 1st , and it was January, I think it was a week before the deadline and I thought “how am I going to do this” – and she said did you know there was a mentor/mentored session later that evening? I didn’t know that either, but when she asked what I wanted to do, I gave her sort of what I want to do in university, and she said it sounded pretty interesting, that she already knew me, and offered to be my mentor. S: Oh okay, well that was lucky. J: Yeah! I was completely out of luck, and then I... asked around a bit, did a bit more research, and I said yeah, I’ll take you up on your offer.
What [specific information] do you know about your pharmacology integration then? J: From what I hear from friends, that they just go through a couple hundred drugs, and learn what they do - the mechanism of action... they memorize drugs. Apparently in their labs, they get to work with certain drugs on certain animals... I’m not actually going to do the labs because I’m integrating. Otherwise, it’s generally about the study of drugs and drug development.
I’ve heard of a lot of Integrated Sciences students with a physiology integration. Do you think it would be possible to completely match an alumni or an upper years with the same integration, or do you think it would be okay to match one of the branches? J: I think one would be okay. Just someone who you can see an example of a proposal from, and just someone you can ask questions about certain courses.
Looking back, what’s the biggest difference, moving from 1st year to 2nd? And from 2nd to 3rd, if you want to mention both? J: I think the biggest difference is from first to second is about narrowing things down, I think when you come into university a lot of times you’re exploring really random things – I think your courses reflect that. Like this year, I didn’t take any math or physics courses, and I love both of those subjects. I did more chemistry/biology/biochemistry... Like 1st year you do really broad topics, and in upper years you really specialize more. I think that’s the same with your life, and your extracurricular life too. In 1st year I joined a lot of random clubs... it’s not that I’m not exploring in 2nd and 3rd year. Rather, I think it’s more of a honed process this time. What do you think your integration has to do with your long term goals? Do you think it’s the best plan you could have had? J: I think my long-term goal is to be a doctor, and I think the integration [physiology and pharmacology] is a helpful idea for me. Particularly, I wanted to focus on pharmacology, and getting the history of drugs and their involvement in society.
Jason has also mentioned that, within his integration, he wants to explore the different systems of the human body and how they interact with drugs. He believes that expertise in these two fields of knowledge will definitely come in handy.
0 Comments
|
Categories
All
Blog TeamHannah, VP Admin Archives
January 2022
|