Undergraduate / UF Essay- How I can contribute to the campus as a Gator [4]

In the space provided, please write a concise narrative in which you describe a meaningful event, experience or accomplishment in your life and how it will affect your college experience or your contribution to the UF campus community. You may want to reflect on your ideas about student responsibility, academic integrity, campus citizenship or a call to service.

It's a late Friday on the hottest day in July, most of the lab technicians including my lab partner had gone home for the weekend. But not I, I was determined to conduct a successful PCR for this batch of DNA without messing up the mixture inputting the inappropriate amount of solution. Pippetting was my greatest difficulty. A push too light, would result in inefficient solution, but a push too hard would over extract the amount of solution. Two hours after the labs closing, I finally ran a successful batch of 96 PCR that would run for the night. This was definitely not how I expected my Friday night to be spent, working in a botany lab. Suggested by my sister, a senior at UF, she recommended I do the 51st annual Student Science Training Program (SSTP) that she did when she was a rising senior.

The program was academically demanding, setting insane deadlines for lecture papers, lab research papers, and final oral presentations. Coming from a school with a high demand of coursework, I was accustomed to loads of work being piled one. The idea of living on my own, with no parents and my own responsibilities, that concept was something completely different. Residing in Beaty Towers for seven weeks with 97 others students, I gravitated towards a unique group of people who made me realize what kind of person I wanted to become and the things I had to get there. My roommate who was used to living on his own, with his mom who passed away and a working dad, was able to teach me the basics of cooking a full meal without setting the kitchen on fire and how to do the laundry without shrinking all of my clothes.

However, my greatest obstacle was living in a dorm room with 3 other guys in allotted space that was about half the size that I was normally used too. Sleeping on the top bunk, every night for the first three weeks, when my alarm would buzz at 6:30 in the morning I would roll over and plummet 9 feet onto the carpet. Coping with the struggles of college life definitely required some time to getting used too. After some practice I was able to slip into a comfortable working routine where I beat my roommate for the shower, pack my lunch for lab the night before and alternate doing the dishes at night. By the 5th and 6th week of the program, I amazingly found myself very in sync with the style of living. The 7 weeks at SSTP felt like a simulation of adult life, I attended lectures in the morning, completed 7 hours of rigorous research, and attended an honors seminar in the evening. Because of my summer at SSTP I was able to come home bringing the maturity of a college student and the responsibility of working as an adult.