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费利西亚Attor has thrived as a chemistry and French double major on a pre-med track, but it has been her time off campus—during a semester abroad in Morocco and an internship in Thailand—that has helped her define the path she hopes to take in the future.

 

“Before junior year in college, I didn’t think about the policies that go into making primary health care accessible and affordable to all people, and that is something that has piqued my interest, especially after Thailand,” she 说. 之后的夏天 her junior year, 费利西亚 spent a month living with a family in rural northern Thailand, where she worked as an intern shadowing health professionals in the local clinic. She also conducted independent 研究, through a grant from the Douglass Cater Society of Junior Fellows, to analyze the accessibility and affordability of the Thai health 系统. 

“I have such a big passion for public health and medicine in general, but I’m thinking about doing a master’s degree in global health disparities and then see if I still want to go to medical school after that or expand on the global health path,” she 说.

During the fall of her junior year, 费利西亚 spent the semester at Al Akhawayn University, where she studied primarily humanities, Arabic, and French. 她喜欢用英语讲话。 French so much that she decided to elevate it from a minor to a major when she returned 去厕所. She was able to maintain her chemistry major even while abroad thanks to help from her advisor in chemistry, Professor Anne Marteel-Parrish, (also a native French 演讲者).

“A lot of science majors have the impression that you can’t study abroad because you’re a science major, and it’s complicated,” 费利西亚 说. “但博士. 马特尔已经准备好了 sit down with me and plan out whole semesters and how it would go, so it’s been fantastic. She was willing to make it all 为我工作. I was doubling up on my course loads before and after going to Morocco so I am not behind at all in my chemistry degree.“以 humanities classes while there helped fulfill her distribution requirements, so she could more fully focus on chemistry at WC.

“One thing I like about all my professors is that we have conversations outside of class, we talk about things that are not part of the classroom, and it’s always amazing 坐下来和他们聊天. They are very good listeners and give really good 建议，”她说. For example, she enjoys talking with Jennifer Benson, chair and associate professor of philosophy, about news stories related to Benson’s work. “I will go there and we will talk about this news article and she will give me her perspective from academia and I will be, ‘Oh, I never thought of that.’ ’’

费利西亚 wasted no time landing internships, the first during the summer after her sophomore year, when she worked in the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health in Washington, D.C.，有关癌症 研究.

Along with the Thailand internship last summer, 费利西亚 also received a Cater grant to work one-on-one with Anna Smith, visiting professor in chemistry, synthesizing flavonoids 用于抗衰老研究—work she will continue to do as part of her Senior Capstone Experience (SCE) for chemistry. Her French SCE will examine sub-Saharan immigration to Morocco and how European Union policies effect the human rights abuses that happen 在南部边境. 

And, during winter break of her senior year, she’s joined the Cuba Experience course where she will continued independent 研究 on public health accessibility and affordability, using that 研究 to complement her work on the topic in Thailand.