However perceptive and understanding I thought myself to be prior to engaging in the Medallion Program, I could not have imagined the breadth of awareness I would gain--about myself and the world around me--at the end of my undergraduate career. It is difficult to perceive your own limitations and preconceptions until presented with challenging views. 

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In working on my research regarding Fairchild's first expedition to the Bahamian islands, I worked in-person and remotely with my mentor Dr. Javier Francisco-Ortega, holding monthly meetings and collaborating otherwise through email. Being my first project to culminate in a research paper and my first research to deal with historical documents as opposed to organisms, I was unfamilair with the process from the very beginning. I depended on my team's insight and guidanceto make progress as a more integral part of the team. After a learning curve, I became adept at communicating my research.   Moreover, reading through past primary documents and bringing to light discoveries relevant to the present demonstrated to me how sharing information is valuable not only for interpersonal academic goals, but to serve as wider foundations for future research. 

 

One of the most meanignful experiences I had was attending the Global Indigenous Affairs Panel in my junior year, where a host of representatives of different indegenous cultures worldwide communicated to us some of the concerns their communities were faced with at the time. The many issues touched upon ranged from water privatization, lack of cultural education, loss of stories and reclaiming language, and the forcible removal from tribal lands. Panel and audience discussion of these issues gave me a stark realization of how little I knew about global current events at the time, and gave me varied perspectives I would not have arrived at myself. Currently, I am susbscribed to a number of journals that publish studies on health disparities to keep up-to-date on ongoing issues. Consequently, I take more care in approaching issues I am not well-versed in, and find myself seeking out the perspectives of those who have genuine lived experiences to inform my own opinion. This has led me to even more experiences and more people willing to expound upon their thoughts regarding cultural differences and similarities, several of which have become close friends and acquaintances.

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My experience of learning from speakers of the Global Indigenous Forum led me to the Global Women's Writing course, where a focus of the class was developing a group project on the issues faced by indigenous women outside North America. Working on this project with my group remembers resulted in discovering the gap in healthcare resources for indigenous women in Guatemala, as mistrust in the healthcare system due to systemic discrimination based on ethnicity leads the women to  suffer from pathologies that could otherwise be well-controlled. This further strengthened my resolve to learn more about under represented groups and to enter the healthcare system as a medical practitioner, in order to integrate my knowledge of cross-cultural needs and see to it that patients of any cultural background  receive appropriate help.

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