S-STEM Scholar Luisa Zamora's Blog

 Hello everyone! I hope you've all been doing well. Personally I've been having a hard time keeping up with everything this semester. I don't know if it's just me, but I feel like this semester in particular has been really difficult.  This week's blog post is about what we think we're going to use our degree for. This and similar questions are difficult for me to answer because I'm not really sure what I want to do as a career. I have some ideas but I'm not sure if they're very realistic or if I will end up changing my mind and want to do something else. My current plans with my degree are to go into the field of conservation. I've done some field work before and I've found that I really enjoy it, so I'm thinking of looking into being a wildlife biologist or something similar. I just know that I want to do something to help others, the environment, and help make a difference. I've been trying to get as much general experience as poss

Hello everyone! It's been great to see everyone now that we are back on campus. I look forward to meeting everyone who is new to the program and to reconnecting with everyone who is returning. I have taken an extra semester before graduating in December, so it's nice to see familiar faces in addition to the new ones. Hope you've all been doing well! :) For this week's blog post, as you know, we are discussing our online presence. While thinking about what to write for this blog post, I realized that my online presence is pretty substantial, which is the complete opposite of what it was when I was younger. Starting middle school, I had zero online presence. I had no desire for or even much knowledge of the internet; however, soon I started to realize that practically everyone was online. It quickly started to feel as though even socializing with my friends was difficult to do without an online presence. I remember feeling like everyone was on one channel and I was on ano

1. When thinking about the future, I often get really overwhelmed and start thinking about everything that I haven't been able to do and what I have yet to do. To try to decrease this anxiety, I have begun trying to live more in the moment and limit my thinking to things that are more immediately in my control. So as of right now, my main professional goal is to first graduate with my bachelors. I was supposed to graduate this semester but I will hopefully be graduating next Fall. After that, I want to take a break from school and try to get experience. School has been really draining for me, so I think a change of pace might help me think differently about things. When gaining experience, I hope to be able to find a job or other opportunity somewhere where I can make a positive impact in my community and to the environment. I hope to learn a lot and find other things that I am interested in! 2. There are countless societal challenges that I think are important to deal with now. Am

  1. What did you know about your field 3 years ago, and what have you learned about that has 'wowed' you? Three years ago, I was in my second year of community college. Back then, I knew that my major was challenging and I still think so. I was scared to take organic chemistry and calculus, and I'm still scared of organic chemistry. Calculus turned out to be easier than I thought, surprisingly. I think it helped that I had taken it in high school. I think over the years what I've learned the most is that there are more things out there than I thought. I didn't know much about college since my parents didn't finish it and we weren't born here. However, what I have learned is that it's definitely not a linear process. I used to think that it was, but now I'm learning that a lot of people take breaks and get into things and then get out of things. Learning this has made me feel a bit better since I am not as sure of what my plans are as other seem to b

Hello everyone :) I hope things have been going well for you. This semester has been pretty tough for me but my family and friends have really helped me to keep going and not go crazy. I really love and appreciate all of my family and my friends, but the ones that I am probably most grateful to are my sister and my best friend. For a while I have been dealing with some mental health issues and I really appreciate that I can talk to them about things that I wouldn't feel comfortable talking about with anyone else. I think that it is really important to have someone that you can share these things with and that is genuinely happy to see you grow and succeed, even though sometimes you may not see these things yourself. Sometimes its easy to fall into thinking that you are alone in things, but it really helps to have someone reminding you that someone is rooting for you.  As for advice I'd give to my younger self, I think maybe the biggest thing I could advise myself would be to tr

 Hey everyone :) It's finally the end of this very long semester! I hope everyone ended the semester on a good note, or that you guy will end on a good note, if you're still working. I am currently working on two term papers that are due tomorrow. But after that, I'm free for the winter! I'm trying to stay positive and push through until the end.  But anyway, if you guys ended on a good note or a bad one, try your best not to stress too much, if you can. This semester was crazy and I'm sure everyone of us put in our best effort that we could do. That's pretty much all one can do with crazy situations. Hopefully next semester is a little less hectic. I hope everyone has a good break, you deserve it!!

 Hello everyone, happy Halloween!  For our STEM Success class, we had to make a video talking about our experience as members of the TRAIN program. I partnered up with Cathy and together we came up with a video with tips to help guide students through the program! We tried to think of things we have learned and things we wish someone had told us. Hopefully they are helpful!  Picking a Project: - Make a list of professors you like and ask if they have projects going on - Reach out to professor or lab  - Reach out to other TRAIN scholars. Maybe you will find a project/professor you like  - Reach out to ppl in different campuses  - Look through lab websites or professor websites and see if you can find a research lab Working on the Project: - The majority of your research will probably be reading scientific articles, so gather background information. The best way to do this is to read the abstract of a paper, and the results/discussion to see if this is the best resource for you.  - Lab n

 Hello everyone! I was reading some of your guys' blog posts and it sounds like everyone has mixed feelings towards this semester. Things have certainly been interesting. Towards the end of summer, like a couple weeks before school started my mom and brother tested positive for COVID. We all couldn't really believe it, it seemed like just something that was affecting our lives but was still somewhat far away. Long story short, my sister and I had to take over and take care of everything while my mom and brother quarantined in a room. I'm really grateful because they were in there for a little over two weeks, then they tested positive and now seem to be fine.  However, even though they were fine, I didn't want to risk getting anyone else outside of us sick, so my siblings and I decided to do all of our classes online. We planned on coming back mid semester, but now it just seems easier to keep going as we are. Easier is an understatement though, getting used to being ful

Hello everyone,      I really hope everyone is during well. Towards the beginning of the transition into quarantine and online classes, I thought I was the only one who was struggling to cope with the changes but as the semester has progressed, I have learned that I am not alone. So I really hope that everyone is doing well or is doing better!      I just finished taking all of my finals and am proud of myself on how I did. While these last couple weeks have been crazy, I took time off from everything I could to make sure I did well on things, and I'm really glad to say that it paid off. I'm happy about this, but also now that I'm finished with this semester, I now have summer classes to worry about, so I'm happy but nervous haha      I really hope everyone has a good summer and congrats to those graduating!