I think that I didn’t realize the magnitude of moving abroad for a semester until my plane landed at Incheon in August. I arrived in Korea knowing not a single person and with bright-eyed determination to soak up every experience possible and learn lots of Korean. I unfortunately fell for the trap of watching too…
Tag: Fall 2022
CUTF: Navigating the Music, One (Half or Whole) Step at a Time
Over my four years in the Heinz Chapel Choir, I’ve had the privilege of working with Dr. Rice in a variety of projects. Under her guidance, I have successfully led practices outside of class, organized fundraisers, designed and distributed merchandise, guided Big/Little Induction Ceremonies, and have recently given starting pitches to the choir during our…
My Journey away from a Google Maps Dependency
I will not sugar-coat it; I was miserably stressed in my first weeks here in Brussels. Now, after nearly two months of living here, I laugh at my early-September-self for feeling so hopeless. Pre-Brussels-Adriana could never imagine that I would be able to find my way around the city without using Google Maps, that I…
CUTF 2: Becoming Involved in Teaching
I became a Peer leader for Dr. Bell’s class during the Fall 2021 semester, hosting weekly content reviews. One observation I made was that students often did not take advantage of the course resources until the days leading up to the exams. For example, there was low attendance at peer sessions in between exams, then…
My Journey to the CUTF
In many ways, the Chancellor’s Undergraduate Teaching Fellowship has provided me with a unique avenue to engage with the academic community here at Pitt. Bridging the relationship between professor and student, the fellowship has allowed me to directly contribute to how a course is taught at Pitt. Translating my experience as a student to a…
New Passions in a Big World
My “why Korean” story has never been the most straightforward narrative nor were my goals very specific when I first watched a YouTube video teaching me the basics Hangeul. I grew up listening to K-pop with my brother and would secretly watch Korean dramas in the back of my seventh grade classes when I was…
My Experience Joining a Lab at Pitt
One of the main things that drew me to Pitt was the multitude of different research opportunities available all over campus. I tried a few different types of research before landing on the VanDemark Lab and ultimately deciding that I was interested in wet lab and biology research. From my experience in my biology courses,…
Experience as a Researcher
My interest in research stems from a curiosity for how the world (especially the parts we can’t see) works. I want to constantly be learning about the mechanisms of cells, development, and gene expression. It was this passion for discovery that prompted me to reach out to Dr. Sarah Hainer via email about the work…
CURF: Finding my place
Freshman year, I came into Pitt as an astrophysics major. I took physics and calculus classes for a year and a half before realizing it wasn’t my passion and switched to psychology. However, I discovered I missed the science and math that was a big part of my previous major and looked for ways to…
From Student to Student Researcher
Coming into freshman year, the concept of research was both intimidating and foreign to me. I had no idea what research was really like. My only contact with research was through being force-fed long research papers and learning about scientific figures that had made history–literally–in classes. But during my freshman year at Pitt, I realized…