I would entitle my album "Anxious Let Down". This fully encapsulates my experience with college. I feel that I have become incredibly anxious at college but unable to function beyond my limits leaving me felt stressed and let down. A lot of the vibe of these songs are "pop chill-out" genre for the most part. I absolutely love this niche of music and think it has an experimental quality to it that encapsulates the self-discovery and vying emotions that are part of daily life in college. These songs have a dualistic tempo that is inherently faster-paced for being "chill" music. I feel that this is my standard operating system of being calm but not quite relaxed. They have a dazed like quality to them that draws me to these artists and songs and is reflective of my campus. - "That's Life" by Still Woozy - "Tyrant" - Kali Uchis ft. Jorja Smith - "belong" by slenderbodies - "Imagine That" by Pritty - "Chemistry" by Left Boy -Heartstrings by Felly ft. Santana My artist name for this album is Riot of the Baby Blue. I feel this accurately represents my mentation with baby blue being traditionally calm and innocent in connotation. Riot is jarring but fully represents the way that I have been dealing with contrasting feelings and the simulations stress, fun, relaxing, work of being at Cornell.

“Experts” in parenting claim that establishing a bedtime routine is key. Yet, other “experts” advocate for letting children sleep wherever, whenever. So, which is it? Working in daycares, babysitting, and helping raise my two siblings under five, I have found the answer is both. There are no hard-and-fast rules for childcare. And if there are, they will quickly be broken by a screaming two-year-old. I find it unlikely that the cavemen had the ‘Prehistoric Guide to Parenthood: For Dummies.’ Yet, here we are thousands of years later still struggling to put our children to sleep instead of making sure they don’t become a saber-tooth tiger’s lunch. People throughout history have raised their children without playpens, iPads, or even Youtube, and managed to keep themselves sane. So why don’t the experts agree? Who is behind all of the parenting books? Who is telling you how to parent and what will keep your child healthy, normal even? I used to believe that there was an answer to everything. That was until I spent this past summer scrutinizing medical guidelines. As a summer research rotational student in the Department of Biomedical Informatics of the Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania, I sought out the daunting task of essentially editing medical guidelines for readability. By using an executable program, I sifted tirelessly through recommendations. Organizing these recommendations into subcategories, detailing decision variables and actions, allows for computers to process these recommendations as ‘logic’ or a decision tree. For example, if the patient has suspected depression, then complete a depression screen. It may seem simple, but by simplifying the recommendations to be understandable and concise, more doctors will have access to the information. The goal is that no matter where someone goes for medical care, the quality of treatment will remain consistent. The idea that a patient at two different hospitals could end up with drastically different care because the guidelines are vague is unacceptable. By creating a computer code that reads the patient’s unique medical profile and draws upon the ‘logic’ it was programmed to follow, this creates more personal care that takes into account each individual's particular circumstances. My work with the Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania was indicative to me of the broken bridge between medical research and theory to application. This disconnect is where I want to be. My passion for kids, journalism, and love of biology gives me the unique opportunity to combine science and communication in a manner that can close this gap. Instead of believing there is a clear-cut, wrapped-up solution to every problem, I have come to believe we are all detectives searching for clues to cue us in on ‘the right thing to do.’ One day in a room full of ten toddlers makes flexibility and ingenuity not options, but survival skills. Medicine is no different. I want to make medicine work for us, in the modern world, using all the available resources. This work will propel medicine into the future and make it workable for all.

“Experts” in parenting claim that establishing a bedtime routine is key. Yet, other “experts” advocate for letting children sleep wherever, whenever. So, which is it? Working in daycares, babysitting, and helping raise my two siblings under five, I have found the answer is both. There are no hard-and-fast rules for childcare. And if there are, they will quickly be broken by a screaming two-year-old. I find it unlikely that the cavemen had the ‘Prehistoric Guide to Parenthood: For Dummies.’ Yet, here we are thousands of years later still struggling to put our children to sleep instead of making sure they don’t become a saber-tooth tiger’s lunch. People throughout history have raised their children without playpens, iPads, or even Youtube, and managed to keep themselves sane. So why don’t the experts agree? Who is behind all of the parenting books? Who is telling you how to parent and what will keep your child healthy, normal even? I used to believe that there was an answer to everything. That was until I spent this past summer scrutinizing medical guidelines. As a summer research rotational student in the Department of Biomedical Informatics of the Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania, I sought out the daunting task of essentially editing medical guidelines for readability. By using an executable program, I sifted tirelessly through recommendations. Organizing these recommendations into subcategories, detailing decision variables and actions, allows for computers to process these recommendations as ‘logic’ or a decision tree. For example, if the patient has suspected depression, then complete a depression screen. It may seem simple, but by simplifying the recommendations to be understandable and concise, more doctors will have access to the information. The goal is that no matter where someone goes for medical care, the quality of treatment will remain consistent. The idea that a patient at two different hospitals could end up with drastically different care because the guidelines are vague is unacceptable. By creating a computer code that reads the patient’s unique medical profile and draws upon the ‘logic’ it was programmed to follow, this creates more personal care that takes into account each individual's particular circumstances. My work with the Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania was indicative to me of the broken bridge between medical research and theory to application. This disconnect is where I want to be. My passion for kids, journalism, and love of biology gives me the unique opportunity to combine science and communication in a manner that can close this gap. Instead of believing there is a clear-cut, wrapped-up solution to every problem, I have come to believe we are all detectives searching for clues to cue us in on ‘the right thing to do.’ One day in a room full of ten toddlers makes flexibility and ingenuity not options, but survival skills. Medicine is no different. I want to make medicine work for us, in the modern world, using all the available resources. This work will propel medicine into the future and make it workable for all. My love of the humanities and biology are married in Cornell’s Human Biology, Health, and Society major. Searching far and wide, I am yet to find a program that better matches my interests. I want to go to medical school but would like to broaden the scope of my undergraduate study in a way that only Cornell allows me to. The stimulating classes at Cornell along with my expanding knowledge base illustrate the necessity of integrating informatics with medicine to optimize pediatric care globally.

Sage Clara Michel. My middle name feels frequently devalued despite the implications it holds upon me. Every time I write my name as simply Sage Michel, I erase a part of my history. Clara Michel is my great-great-grandmother and I am her namesake. Although she passed away before I was born, her pervasive legacy refuses to be ignored. Born in 1895 in Bavaria, Germany, in a tiny town outside of Munich, Clara received only the equivalent of a third-grade education. Rearing her three younger brothers along with a stint in the family cattle trade, Clara was not one to shy away from adversity. Despite her lacking education due to anti-feminist sentiments, Clara refused to fall victim to her plight. A self-educated, full-blown feminist, Clara left an unfaithful marriage in 1922. She took her son, Ernest, with her and moved to Bayreuth, Germany. Clara witnessed Hitler speak at a German festival in 1933 and always quipped, “I would have believed him had I not been Jewish myself.” Her efforts to contact relatives in America to ensure an escape route was null; her ‘big-mouth’ prevented her from keeping her animosity toward Hitler secret and she became a target. Clara sewed her family’s valuables inside their coats escaping in the night on a train with her deaf mother and son to France. Tragically, her former husband and his family were murdered in Auschwitz⁠—⁠an ominous prediction of what would have been my family’s fate if not for Clara. Clara is quite an extraordinary woman to carry with me. Her sheer escape is a testament to the strength of her character. She was opinionated and sarcastic, yet I have been told you could feel how much she loved you. Every time I see my name, I am reminded of the great lengths and sacrifices she underwent. My grandparents always tell me “she would have loved you” or “you would have made Clara so proud”⁠—these are amongst the greatest compliments I have received. Clara is no longer simply a person to me. She is an ideal to hold myself to. An enigma. Morality. Wisdom. Humor. Modesty or lack thereof. And compassion (only if she liked you). I am Clara. I honor her love of a little mischief. She used to say, “Had I been born today I would have run companies.” I am never without a pithy response or unremitting curiosity; I am Clara. Like her, I help raise my fifteen-year-old brother, seven-year-old sister, and four-year-old brother. I don’t stray away from the daily struggle that is my siblings, the demanding microverse that is Cornell, or my illustrious idol whose legacy I carry. I am unapologetically myself, just as my ‘big-mouthed’, lovable, intelligent, and independent great-great-grandmother once was. I accept the challenge that is living up to her name. I am Clara and I am inspired by her spirit to become the most realized version of myself.

My favorite scientist is Rosalind Franklin as her contribution to biology is massive with her discovery of the double helix structure of DNA. She represents to me the silent power of many women historically in driving forward scientific progress although they often did not reap the recognition that their male counterparts did. Rosalind Franklin is an inspiration to me as someone hoping to enter the STEM field that with hard work women can be leaders in the traditionally male dominated fields.