From a young age, I’ve always wondered how certain processes happen in life; it always seems like there’s something unknown that I can learn about. In AP Biology, I was actually able to learn so many mysteries I had about life like how mutations come about or epigenetics. Even in the most mundane conveniences of life such as caffeine, I’m able to understand how caffeine makes people stay awake: the competitive inhibitor blocks the adenosine receptors, a concept I learned during the enzyme regulation unit. At the end of the school year, my teacher offered different requirements for our final project: CRISPR. I chose the one that I could learn the most from, and the topic that I chose to research was meiosis in CRISPR. As I dug deeper into the topic, I found out that using the findings of CRISPR, scientists can choose which genetic traits they want to appear in babies to get a desired human. Over the summer, I enrolled in the Red Cross READYTeens summer program, where I was able to learn in a more practical environment and engage with CPR, disaster preparedness, treating medical injuries, and more. While volunteering at Huntington Hospital, I asked different healthcare workers how long they had to attend school for, as well as their current life in their position. In the blood lab, a blood technician was kind enough to give me a tour of the lab, and I was able to learn more about that specific area in healthcare.