Mock Fellowship: NIH Summer Program

Which fellowship are you going to explore and why?

• I am going to explore the NIH Summer Internship Program/OITE-PEP because I believe it can help me further my knowledge on what causes certain diseases and how in turn can impact low-income communities or WOC. Specifically, with OITE-PEP I am interested in how it can possibly help me further develop leadership skills and translate any information that I learn into digestible information for any disadvantaged community.

What are all the requirements for applying, and which parts will you submit for this project?

• Requirements for applying include:
• Total Coursework
• CV/Resume
• References
• Personal Statement
• Research Interests
• Training Locations

The parts I will submit for this project are my research interests.

How will your application connect to what we have covered in class?

• In class we covered building each other up within our community and helping everyone, even strangers. Both Valeria Kaur and Aurora Levins Morales cover both ideas, and I believe what I am applying to will help me go into these ideas and create an opportunity to reach out to my community members when it comes to healthcare questions. Valeria Kaur focuses on many things within See No Stranger, but specifically I thin about her opinions on "see no stranger". I think this applies to my application because my application not only focuses on people within my own life but also people, I have seen suffer from health issues who have been turned away or did not know where to go for their issues. I believe hearing people and what they have to say about the healthcare system as well is important because it can bring many perspectives into why the healthcare system is not always trusted. This in turn can be a learning experience for everyone and can provide a way for me to better understand what approach to take when someone wants to be able to trust again. In Aurora Levins Morales's piece Bigger is Better, her main thesis was tackling bigger goals rather than smaller goals which could not produce many results. I believe this relates to my application because again I would like to be able to take any leadership skills or general knowledge from the program and be able to translate that information into digestible information for my community and others.

How would this fellowship extend your ideas beyond the confines of this classroom?

• This fellowship would help me extend my ideas outside of the classroom by helping me become more confident in what I researched and be able to communicate these findings to communities underserved communities. I feel that education of both healthcare disciplines and research are severely neglected within low-income communities, and this tends to turn people into becoming more distrusting and skeptical about healthcare as a whole. But with this fellowship I believe I can be able to better communicate these findings and help people become more comfortable with talking about these topics such as how to help a person active in addiction or how to spot signs of cancer. This knowledge then can further extend to other communities besides who could also lack this knowledge of what adequate healthcare is available and what information should be accessible to them.

What are my research interests?

• My main research interests are either breast cancer research or research the psychology of addiction. These two topics are of interest because both deal with things I have interacted with in my personal life. I would like to better understand both things so that I can bring awareness to communities where information from these topics are not often talked about or are seen as taboo. Researching these two topics could also help me better understand individuals in these situations and what approach should be taken for future research.