Moving Forward
Through this experience I was able to learn and encounter things that will benefit me as a bioengineer. As I previously mentioned, the lab skills that I learned throughout this program will help me in my classes, in future lab internships, and ultimately in my career. Given that I want to use my bioengineering degree to do research, having lab experience is extremely important. Also, having my own research project in my first research experience will show that I am capable of being a leader on whatever project I am assigned to. This experience will also make me a more competitive candidate when I apply for graduate school. While the GRE scores are important, graduate schools also look at how much research each candidate has done, because for engineers the majority of graduate school is research.
Future Plans
I had such a positive experience during this program and I found that I love doing research. Because of this, I have decided that for the rest of my time at UMD I will continue doing research in addition to completing my required coursework. Post graduation, I plan to attend graduate school and get my PhD in bioengineering. As of right now, my career goal is to become a tissue engineer doing research for cosmetic companies because I love cosmetology and I am very interested in stem cell research and would like to study it in the context of tissue engineering. I want to use stem cells to grow hair and skin cells and see how the chemicals in the cosmetic company’s products affect them. This type of research can eliminate animal testing in the cosmetics industry and will increase the accuracy of testing for these products because they will be on real human skin and hair.