There’s something special about sliding down snow on two planks of wood.

I grew up in Colorado and it will always be home. I was lucky to have a family that cultivated a love for the outdoors. We spent many weekends throughout my childhood in the Rocky Mountains hiking, mountain biking and skiing. All this time spent outdoors gave me an insatiable appetite for adventure, which led to an obsession with skiing. I love doing anything outside, but there’s something special about sliding down snow on two planks of wood. Psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi defined the term flow state as “A state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.” That definition accurately describes my relationship with skiing. When I was young, instead of wanting to be an astronaut or a firefighter, I wanted to be a pro skier. I distinctly remember in eighth grade when I had my first real conversation with my parents about what kind of career I wanted to have. I said, “I just want to make a lot of money and be able to ski every day.” (Ironically, this conversation happened on a chairlift.) My mom, a physical therapist by profession, questioned how I would be able to help others as a wealthy ski bum; I didn’t have a good response. Both of my parents urged me to set my sights on something that would benefit those in need.

Do what you love, and you will never work a day in your life.

I have always been inspired by the quote, “Do what you love, and you will never work a day in your life.” Going into high school, I had no idea what kind of job I wanted to have as an adult; the idea of “real work” didn’t appeal to me. I took classes that interested me, in the hope of finding a passion that I could develop into a career. During my junior and senior years, I took a two-year biology class as part of the International Baccalaureate program and something clicked. It was the only class that I actually enjoyed studying for because I thought the concepts were so interesting. Thus, I applied to bioengineering programs for college: I wasn’t sure if I wanted to become a doctor or an engineer, but I knew that I wanted to do something related to medicine.

Santa Clara provides students with a breadth of learning in parallel with a depth of technical knowledge.

Engineering programs generally have regimented curricula with few deviations from the course plan. Santa Clara, however, provides students with a plethora of opportunities to receive a breadth of learning in parallel with a depth of technical knowledge. A perfect example of this is the Emerging Leaders Program: a class for freshmen to learn about themselves to become better leaders. We did an activity in that class that really stuck with me called “Trash Your Values”. Each student was required to write his or her top ten values on note cards, then throw the least important values away one by one; at the end, the only card I had left said service.

Providing emergency medical care to my fellow students has been incredibly rewarding

The Emerging Leaders Program motivated me to seek out opportunities to serve the Santa Clara community that has enriched my time here so much. I got certified as an EMT and became a member of Santa Clara University Emergency Medical Services (SCU EMS). Providing emergency medical care to my fellow students has been incredibly rewarding because I enjoy working directly with people; as an EMT, you can see the immediate benefit of your presence for someone who might be having one of the worst nights of his or her life. While I have cared for many of my peers as an EMT on campus, I wondered what it is like to provide medical care to those who have nothing.

Last summer, I had the opportunity to travel to Cape Town, South Africa to do exactly that: I shadowed doctors at the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital for five weeks andI was fortunate to connect with a talented group of burn surgeons. Every winter, they operate on hundreds of children suffering from large, life-threatening burns requiring major skin grafts. When I was there, during the height of burn season, they were operating on nearly a dozen children every day. After I showed up to the burns theatre a few days in a row, the doctors asked me to scrub in so that I could help them harvest and prepare skin grafts. It was exciting to be given so much responsibility, and inspiring to see the healing progress in patients I had worked on in the operating room. After seeing the benefits these surgeries had on individual children, I was curious to explore the magnitude of the impact this small group of doctors had on the nearby townships. However, I was limited by the time and geographical constraints of my program, and I didn’t know how to go about this type of research.

I left South Africa Feeling like I had unfinished work.

I also noticed that during burn season, the skin banks were constantly running out, and the surgeons would have to travel to other hospitals to harvest skin for grafts. The whole system seemed to make the surgeons’ lives very difficult, and probably made it hard to have positive patient outcomes. I came to South Africa with the goal of coming home with a list of ideas for my Senior Design Project; I thought that there had to be some way that bioengineers could address the need for allografts. I left South Africa Feeling like I had unfinished work: I wanted to know how much of a difference these doctors were making, how to utilize their skills most effectively, and how to address their lack of resources.

When I returned to Santa Clara in September, I found a brochure for the Global Social Benefit Fellowship while unpacking boxes. I thought back to my freshman year when I first heard about the Fellowship: “action research” didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me back then. When I re-read the brochure, I realized that action research was exactly what I had wanted to do in Cape Town. The prospect of conducting research in the field immediately appealed to me.

I’m absolutely thrilled to apply my passion for service towards action research for Nurture Africa this summer in Uganda.