Year Three (2019-2020)
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CHEM 239: Organic Chemistry III
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CHEM 241: Organic Chemistry Lab I
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HONORS 230: Leadership, Democracy, and a More Thoughtful Public
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MUSEN 303: Marching Band
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BIOC 405: Intro to Biochemistry I
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CHEM 242: Organic Chemistry Lab II
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HONORS 394: Ways of Feeling
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BPHYS 115: General Physics
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PHYS 118: General Physics Lab II
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BIOC 406: Intro to Biochemistry II
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HONORS 232: Social Entrepreneurship
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HONORS 397: Peer Educator Prep
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BPHYS 116: General Physics III
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PHYS 119: General Physics Lab III
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BBIO 285: Disease & Diagnostics
Autumn Quarter 2019
Husky Marching Band!
My third year of marching band! Coming off of the exhilration of the Rose Bowl last season, hopes were high for another winning football season. While the Huskies lost a few more games than we would have liked, I had a lot of fun traveling to San Francisco for the UW vs. Stanford game and to Tuscon for the UW vs. Arizona game! At the end of the season, we got to go to the Las Vegas bowl, which was so much fun!
HONORS 230: Leadership, Democracy, and a More Thoughtful Public
Whew, Honors 230 was by far one of the most challenging and thought-provoking classes I had taken in the Honors Program up until this point! Reading selections from various novels and historical documents in addition to Professor Soder's own "The Language of Leadership," students were tasked with writing a summary including out thoughts for each class period (or set of readings). As a STEM student, writing so frequently really helped me develop my writing skills as I got to practice writing about 1-2 pages twice a week. Class times were divided into full-group and small-group discussions, with encouragement to rotate groups each week. I loved this aspect of the course! In addition, at the end of Honors 230, we were tasked with writing a final paper about a topic we covered in the course. I chose to write my paper about what makes leaders effects, what it means to persuade an individual with rhetoric, the political context of leadership, and what it means to use rhetoric and persuasion ethically in the context on information-seeking. Weighing in at 13 pages and 7,377 words, this essay was definitely one of the longest I've written and included large amounts of planning and setting aside certain periods of the day leading up to finals week to focus only on writing!
Winter Quarter 2020
CHEM 242: Organic Chemistry Lab
Building off of skills and concepts learned in the first organic chemistry lab (CHEM 241), our main task for the second lab class in the organic chemistry series was to identify two unknowns (one liquid, one solid) over the course of several weeks. Using various tests to determine what functional groups may or may not be present in the compound in addition to various spectrometry tests, I was able to identify both my solid and liquid compounds by the end of the quarter. While challenging, and sometimes frustrating when I would get conflicting results from qualitative and quantitative test, identifying my unknown compounds taught me a huge amount about all sorts of organic chemistry lab techniques in addition to teaching me about how one might identify compounds or confirm the identity of compounds in a real-life lab situation!
HONORS 394: Ways of Feeling
"Ways of Feeling" was a very interesting course in that it combined a mixture of Honors students, Slavik studies graduate students, and Linguistics undergraduate students into the same classroom. As a result, class discussions were always rich with a myriad of interesting perspectives, and it was so cool to be able to connect with students from other departments that I may never have crossed paths with if I had not enrolled in "Ways of Feeling." As part of the writing component of the course, I was able to write about an interesting English phrase, "good vibes" and how it came to be, in addition to writing a final paper about the emotional impacts of social media on young individuals in society.
Spring Quarter 2020
HONORS 232: Social Entrepreneurship for Population Health
"Social Entrepreneurship for Population Health" was such a different class for me. Led by business academics and professionals, along with public health guest speakers, it was so interesting to dip into the world of business that I knew very little about prior to taking the course! As part of the class, small teams were tasked with creating a business model that would serve some sort of need caused by the impacts of COVID-19. Taking a look at the needs of graduating (and even junior year) college students in the wake of the pandemic, our group created "Hope 2020," a website designed to provide resources and support for students entering the workforce or preparing for graduate or professional studies. Through the project, we learned how to construct a resource-based website, how to construct a business model, how to write "elevator pitches" and much more!
BBIO285: Disease, Diagnostics,
and Treatment
Made up of a small 15-person class that was seminar-style, BBIO 285 allowed us to delve into the testing, treatment, socioeconomics, and spread of COVID-19, HIV/AIDS, chlamydia, and HPV around the world. Each week, we read through information and watched videos about varying disease-related topics, and created and recorded a PowerPoint presentation reflecting our knowledge. For my final project, I chose to talk about COVID-19 testing. Back in June, it was still very difficult to get tested for COVID-19, and severe lack of testing materials caused individuals to know about their positive COVID-19 status too late, leading them to seek treatment when their symptoms were already severe. However, learning about different testing, treatment, and vaccine-related information regarding COVID-19 did help me feel more knowledgeable and in control of the pandemic that was so new and terrifying!