Welcome to my Honors Portfolio

I feel like my journey at UW has had several threads of learning I have explored. For now, this is a longer essay covering all of those a bit separately-- one of my main lines of thinking now is how all of these have interacted together.

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A class from my first quarter laid the groundwork for me to grow as a learner, thinker, and Husky. The analysis of monstrous representations of minorities and women in Caribbean and Southern US literature was foreign to me. ‘Bringing to consciousness’ is the professor’s oft repeated phrase and emphasizes what the class was to me. Where analysis had previously been from historical lenses, analyzing media through feminist, queer, and post-colonial frameworks brought to consciousness issues of institutional knowledge, unveiling assumptions, and how intersectional identity/positionality influences belonging. Following thought threads with these new analytical frameworks, I stopped searching for ‘correct’ interpretations and instead looked for threads that made me passionate about the topic.

 

However, once the summer hit, I lost that motivation to engage with anything. I had signed up for an August study abroad in Sweden, but I considered dropping it and was in a poor place mentally. Luckily, my parents and friends encouraged me, and our trip to Sweden accelerated my development. The use of ‘our’ is intentional; I cannot separate the places from the people since the other students on the trip always made me feel welcome! Everyone helped me feel comfortable sharing and creating new communities with others. While there are many stories I could tell, I think karaoke best explains my new mindset. While I ran from a Hall Council event when asked to sing, I was one of the first to butcher “Africa” by Toto in a karaoke bar in Stockholm! By actively initiating conversations, I expanded the thought threads past the classroom and what others presented to me. I began choosing what perspectives to explore through my Husky Experience.

 

Seeing how I blossomed when people worked me into the fold, I reflected on how identities and positions shape belonging using class frameworks. I connected how non-white second-generation Swedes feel they could never achieve dreams like being a pilot because school is not for them with conversations I had while volunteering with Black teenagers in Rainier Beach who questioned whether UW would welcome them. Coming from a highly educated family and never worrying about my place in education, I found school systems and clubs helped me connect with parts of my identity (as a scientist, as an Indian American, as a sports fan) and wanted others to feel the same.

 

The Honors Program has always been my base, and I have worked to ensure younger Honors students feel ready to explore unique pathways. As a Peer Educator/Facilitator, I focused on equity theories and facilitating conversation in education settings. Building on strategies from a storytelling class, I became a better listener and focused on making my curriculum culturally relevant to first-quarter freshmen. Another gap in the Honors program was a missing student co created knowledge source. To fill this, I restarted the Peer Mentoring Program to focus more on community-building so more students have a place to share experiences. I hope my efforts help them remember that they belong in Honors and UW! Although I have done these things in ‘official’ positions, the most important lesson I have learned about breaking institutional barriers goes back to my friends helping me in Sweden; all it takes is a person willing to reach out, and I try to lead by being that person every day.

 

Another major thread in my Husky Experience is struggling as a scientist. At the start of college, I doubted whether I could make it as a biology student. Though I made it through the biology weed-outs with the help of friends, taking memorization-heavy classes like organic chemistry challenged my commitment because it seemed like none of the science was useful. At this time, I learned to contextualize by connecting the coursework to my lab research. Learning about reagents in the Fuller Lab, I asked my mentor about the chemistry that drives DNA vaccines and detection processes. Linking these together helped me feel like a scientist and got me through these classes. The reverse was true when I struggled with lab results. Biology 401 and other upper-divisions have taught me basic experimental techniques and how to analyze papers, and they have worked in conversation with my lab work to build critical thinking skills. Recently, taking Immunology was an opportunity for reflection as my interest, combined with lab mentor discussions and research skills meant that I could deeply engage in the course content! It has been satisfying to feel confident leading group activities and paper discussions and exploring topics when I hear about them.

 

My Husky Experience has been all about deconstructing notions of disciplines and success while choosing interdisciplinarity and meaningful community building at the intersection of biology, economics, and public policy. At the start of college, I would have told you I wanted to work on national policy because that has the broadest impact. But, while taking classes focusing on Seattle neighborhoods and mutual aid, I saw that care implementation often comes from micro efforts to make communities safer and healthier. I then thought about the state level, as politicians advertised reducing healthcare worker burden. Instead, I recalled hearing a small clinic at a career fair bemoan the administrative cost of keeping up with new policies. I began seeing myself working to reduce the gap between planning/policy and implementation.

 

As I took more economics classes and a class on safety-net hospitals, I added a market level understanding of domestic healthcare as a service. Within the system, factors like age and insurance status prevent access to high-quality care despite its availability. These classes and conversations with mentors made me comprehend that such a large market failure between policy and implementation would be difficult to solve.

 

Not losing hope, I shifted to thinking deeply about what I value. With health encompassing so many areas of life, my experiences have taught me that local actions can hugely impact mental and/or physical health. By joining Kinspire, I have developed self-efficacy curricula for children in Indian childcare facilities, helping them build goal-setting and career planning skills. These micro-actions supporting children gave me the idea to work even more locally in Seattle. As a HungerCorps member this past summer, I was a consistent figure in community spaces with games and activities while serving meals to children. Reminded of my previous volunteering and conversations in Sweden and using skills developed from the Peer Educator and Mentor programs, I was fulfilled by improving kids’ health and developing culturally relevant activities. I now feel the grassroots level could be right for me.

 

Grassroots still means many things to me. My iGEM work on chemical-filtering biofilms and antibiotic-extenders is an entrepreneurial yet local way to improve community health by combining biological knowledge, stakeholder engagement, and economic policy research. Shadowing doctors has also deepened my understanding of safe spaces for patients being vulnerable with their health concerns, opening my eyes to medicine as a career. Additionally, I can still see myself working in policy after gaining more experience with analysis and evaluation metrics, which I am pursuing in my coursework. I am proud that my Husky Experience has greatly enhanced my knowledge of what providing care means and that I have worked hard to develop the skills to connect ideas, people, and actions in the future!