Image: Excerpt Taken from: UGA Web site University highlights, achievements and awards: The past four years at UGA have been such a whirlwind of opportunities and excitement that it’s incredibly difficult to know where to start. At UGA I’ve been able to thrive as a scholar, a leader and a musician. Academics have always been a priority for me. Thanks to some fabulous teachers, many hours spent studying, and support from my family and friends, I am thrilled to be graduating as a First Honor Graduate this spring. One of the biggest things that UGA has taught me though is that the point of education extends far further than the classroom. The point is to take what we learn in our classes and apply it to make new knowledge and solve problems in the world. I first got my feet wet with research through the Roosevelt Institute by writing a policy analysis paper about controlling abuse of study drugs on college campuses with one of my friends that we presented at the CURO Symposium my freshman year. My sophomore year I joined a research lab headed by Shelley Hooks working to understand the role the protein RGS10 plays in controlling neuroinflammation and chronic pain. With the help of the CURO Summer Fellowship and a CURO Research Assistantship, I was able to write my Honors thesis, present at the 2015 CURO Symposium, and travel to Washington, D.C., to present at Posters on the Hill, a multi-disciplinary undergraduate research conference. In D.C. I also had the opportunity to speak one-on-one with congressional representatives about the importance of undergraduate research. Leadership and service have also been extremely memorable parts of my experience at UGA. My freshman year I was on the founding board of Vibha at UGA, an educational service organization that worked to make learning fun at local schools through academic bowl afternoon programs. Sophomore year, my friend and I co-founded RefUGA, a refugee advocacy organization that serves refugees in the Athens and Atlanta communities. Taking RefUGA from two people with an idea to an organization poised to make an impact on the Athens community working with the most incredible team of people has been one of my most truly rewarding and meaningful experiences. My time at UGA let me continue pursuing one of my greatest loves — choral music. I have been in five ensembles during my time here including everything from the African American Choral Ensemble to the a cappella group With Someone Else’s Money to the Hodgson Singers, UGA’s premier auditioned ensemble. I got to go on tour with the Hodgson Singers in Austria and the Czech Republic my sophomore year where we sang in some of the world’s most beautiful cathedrals and brought home first prize at the Ave Verum International Choir Competition for the Dawgs! In addition to traveling for choir, I’ve also been able to spend two summers abroad. The summer after my freshman year I spent eight weeks in Ghana volunteering with a school and local health care providers in a rural village through Operation Crossroads Africa. The summer after my junior year, with the support of the Honors International Scholars Program, I spent six weeks at a medical school in rural India studying how how private, government and charity efforts work together to provide health care to rural underserved and how social development projects that integrate economic, educational and medical approaches are reducing health disparities in India. I have been fortunate to receive several scholarships to support my undergraduate career including the Zell Miller Scholarship, the Henry King Stanford Scholarship, the Comcast Leaders and Achievers Scholarship, the Crane Leadership Scholarship and the Tucker Dorsey Memorial Scholarship. I have also met phenomenal people through involvement in Palladia Women’s Honor Society, Blue Key Honor Society and Sphinx Honor Society. Through it all, the Honors Program staff, the fabulous faculty, my friends and the student community at UGA have pushed me to take advantage of every opportunity that I possibly could and enjoy my time here at UGA to the fullest.
