By Aaron T.
It has been almost a week since the start of SSP. My expectations of this program have been exceeded so far. Going into this program, I thought that the experience would not be as good as it usually would because of the online setting. However, after meeting all the amazing faculty and hanging out with fellow participants during TA sessions, I realized that over a month of Zoom meetings wouldn’t be so bad after all. Last night, I spent a little too much time playing Valorant with some of my friends from school. I would soon come to regret this as I woke up only 10 minutes before the CA session. I quickly got ready and opened my computer, ready to start the day. I started to panic, however, when Google Chrome wouldn’t load and my internet seemed to be not working. I scurried into the living room and restarted the router, hoping to fix the problem. After 15 minutes, my internet finally started working and I joined the zoom meeting….15 minutes late. During the zoom meeting, Dr. Jill gave an awesome lecture on bioinformatics. She taught me what a metabolome is! I worked on the class activity with Micah and Jang. This class activity was a little challenging because bioinformatics was new to all of us, but we were able to work together and complete it quickly. After the meeting was over, I had a 30-minute break until the Campus Block session started. I played with my dog and ate a banana in the meantime.
During the Campus Block session, I had the honor of playing Spyfall with Dr. Jill. She turned out to be a very sneaky player when she avoided being caught as the spy for one of the rounds. After the meeting, I went down to the kitchen and ate a nice, fresh salad for lunch. Ever since COVID, I picked up some new hobbies to do at home, such as working out. During the 3 hour break until the TA session, I went on a couple of runs and bike rides. I like to listen to music while I work out too. Recently, Photosynthesis by Saba has been on repeat, rotting in my brain. Finally, the TA session started. We played a fun game of Garticphone. During the course of this game, we saw “George Washington taking a pee” turn into a chicken saluting the American flag. We also saw “Devin bullying Rachel” turn into hot dogs… for some reason. After the fun games, it was time to get to work. We worked on a Labster simulation that was about a murder scene! So fun! Then, sadly, the day started to come to an end. TA sessions are definitely my favorite part of the day. I think that being in the breakout rooms with the other participants has helped me make new friends and deepen our bond as fellow SSP members. I hope to deepen this bond even more throughout the course of the summer and I’m really looking forward to what we will do in the coming weeks.
