Olubusola Osunsanya is a senior majoring in Biology. She was awarded a Fall 2017 Conference Grant which she used to attend the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students.
On November 1st - November 4th, 2017, I had the pleasure of attending and presenting at the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS) in Phoenix, Arizona. ABRMS is a conference hosted by the ASM, with the goal of getting more minority students involved in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) field. Starting in 2001, ABCRMS has bought together thousands of eager undergraduate students with professionals who are more than willing and able to help students reach their goal. Attending the conference was truly one of the greatest things that I did in my college career and I hope to have the opportunity to attend again in the future.
This was the first year that I attended ABCRMS and it was definitely nerve-raking to do abstract submissions, reservations, flights, presentation prep, etc. Nonetheless, through the help and support from my PI, postdoc, Emory Undergraduate Research program, Dr. Pat Masteller, family, and friend, I was able to get there. For this I am very grateful.
The conference started on November 1st with the beginning session starting at 8am. Most days consisted of attending different sessions, doing research presentations, and meeting different program recruiters, that featured various professionals in all the science field. Sessions focused on helping students with networking, graduate school admissions, various career paths and opportunities, and such like things. One of my favorite sessions focused on career paths for science majors within industry and government jobs. This particular session was aimed at introducing students to opportunities variable for research outside of academia. Here, I networked with various professionals who had either masters or Ph.Ds. in science fields who are working at companies like Coca-Cola, GE, a Healthcare Consulting firm, the Department of Energy, etc. Being able to see the different career paths that one could take with doing research or even being in the sciences, is one this I appreciated from the conference. Furthermore, one thing that I appreciated about these sessions, and the conference as a whole, was the fact that you were surrounded by peers who looked like you and where eager to reach their goals just like you.
Along with attending sessions, I had the opportunity to present my research and even network with different recruiters from a plethora of graduate schools and companies. My research that I did a poster presentation on focuses on fatigue in pre-treatment stage III and IV of head and neck cancer patients. I particular focused on the relationship between hemoglobin levels and fatigue and how albumin affected these levels. All presentations were judged at the conference and I received immense perspectives and advice concerning my work from professional within my discipline. It was definitely a wonderful experience and I learned so much. In regard to meeting recruiters from different programs and companies, it was very overwhelming but still exciting. I was able to learn about programs that I was not familiar with and programs that I did not even think to apply to. Also, it was nice to actually interact and meet with individuals from some of my top graduate programs who were directors of admissions, professors within the program, etc.
Overall my time at ABCRMS was wonderful. I definitely would recommend the conference to anyone who thinks they might be interested in pursuing a career the sciences. The amount of support, resources, connections, and opportunities at the conference and afterwards is unbelievable. This conference is made to help minority involved and prepared for careers within the STEM field, and I can truly say it does that plus more!
Visit the Undergraduate Research Programs website to learn more about applying for Conference Grants.
Comments
Post a Comment