Xiao Ting Tan
Class of 2005
Manhattan International H.S.
Topic: Association of General Arousal & Categorization Decision in Human Brain
About:
If you are interested in science, if you realize that you have a passion in chemistry and you want to learn more, your ordinary high school courses would probably only provide you of some basic text book knowledge getting a taste of everything for your regents or exams, but they can never get you any deeper than that. It is very hard to get professional science experience or work professionally as high school students, but Harlem Children Society is sure to give you a chance in it. It is a program, which helps high students to get into professional labs and work with mentors who are physicians and college graduate students as interns in the summer.
At the beginning of this summer, my teacher Ms. Amy Rosen informed my class of the summer internship program for high school summer interns; and I and one other friend were luckily to be selected for it. Later she arranged an interview with Dr. Sat, the CEO of Harlem Children Society. I was very nervous before the meeting that I thought he was going to ask me many difficult professional science questions, but it turned out; he was a very nice man. During the interview, he talked to us about his career in cancer research and also various cancer researches in Sloan-Kettering Memorial Hospital that he's in, also he asked us a few questions of our interests in the field of science and he soon told our teacher that he will be happy to include us in his summer program of Harlem Children Society. Soon toward the end of the school year, Dr. Sat and my teacher Ms. Amy Rosen found me my wonderful mentor, Dr. Joy Hirsch in the Functional MRI Research Center at Columbia University Medical Center.
This summer at the fMRI research lab has enriched my science knowledge so much and opened my view of professional science. My project was about the dissociation of categorization decision-making and general arousal in human brains, it was just getting started when I first went in the summer. At the beginning, I mostly work with the programs Morpher and Photoshop of creating new stimuli for the experiment and then towards the end of the summer we ran a few subjects on the psychophysics. This experience is totally awesome; I've learned so much of brain networks and had gotten a taste of what college work is like. It is also very neat of analyzing the results with my mentors; I am very impressed of their science knowledge.
Every Monday and Friday of the week we went to lectures of guest speaking and student presentations held by Harlem Children Society. In the student presentation, I've learned from a lot of other students of what they were doing this summer and their researches. They were all doing wonderful work. Their researches have opened up my eyes to various science fields out there, from prostate cancer to environmental studies, rivers, or even studying of the appetite of diabetic patients. These lectures reminded me of how board science is in our world, of everything you can imagine. Not only had I learned about science, Harlem Children Society also invited guest speakers from the bank to provide us information of how to manage our money and also college counselors or college students to preparing us for college.
This is my first year being part of Harlem Children Society, and I have an awesome time. It is a lifetime experience! I would never forget and would be grateful about the rest of my life. It changed my life forever. I am very grateful of Dr. Sat Bhattacharya, my mentor Dr. Joy Hirsch, my teacher Ms. Amy Rosen and many other people who gave me such valuable chance at science, I thank them for their work of preparing the new generation into the society and the world ahead of us. This is the summer experience that everyone should have tried out, it not only would broaden your idea of science, and it will expose you to various great scientists and strengthen your social and working skills as well.