When I was a freshman in high school, I imagined my college self in a lab, staring at bacteria or working with test tubes or something. When I got accepted to Hopkins, I still imagined myself still wanting to do that, as if going to a top research school would lock this dream into place.
But I was wrong.
The day of my first class registration I was sure I wanted to declare a major in Public Health Studies and Biology, and chose my classes:
FALL 2017 SCHEDULE
- Organic Chemistry I
- Introduction to Public Health
- Expository Writing (which was quickly replaced by an improv class)
- Issues in International Development
- Advanced Spanish Composition
Not too atypical for a fall semester. Because of the lack of a core curriculum here at Hopkins, I had extra room in my schedule to take classes that had nothing to do with my potential majors, such as Spanish composition. My goal was originally to take a Spanish class each year so that I wouldn’t forget what I had learned in high school.
What I didn’t know, however, was how in love I would be with Spanish. There was something about the way my professors supported their students or the beauty of the language or the idea that I was learning a part of being from southern California that I could unlock by taking classes at Hopkins. And that was something that I personally found to be more meaningful to me than biology.
¿Y ahora?
SPRING 2018 SCHEDULE
- Research Methods in Public Health
- Elements of Microeconomics
- Medical Spanish
- Introduction to Literature in Spanish
- Modern Latin American Culture
