The Introductory Letter was a 450 to 600 word assignment that was submitted during the first week of classes. It included:

• What our goals as students at CCNY are.
• How we hope the class can facilitate those goals.
• The field of science we wish to pursue study in, with a brief explanation of what it is about that field that interests us, OR, if we aren’t especially interested in any single scientific field, what it is that drew us to this class, and what we hoped to accomplish here.
• What, if any, goals you have in your chosen field of study.  Let me know if you plan to pursue a graduate degree and, if so, in what subject and at what level.

Self-Reflection

Preparing for this paper is arguably universally easy. But it was difficult for me because as a junior it was a year that I had doubts about majoring in the sciences. Be as it may, I had to answer the prompts and it was easy since I have rehearsed answering these questions all my life in hopes to perfect my answers when I finally receive my Med School Interview. This paper was personal, informal and unique to each student so I thought it would be an easy A. This paper taught me to watch out for punctuation, short paragraphs and straying away from the prompts. Here is my Final Version:

The Introductory Letter

Dear Professor Grove,

My name is Marion-Victoria Wairimu, but I prefer to be called Victoria, and I am one of the many students in your English Writing for Science. I am currently majoring in Biology on the pre-med track, in hopes to one day become a doctor. Specifically, a cardiologist. My goals in CCNY are; to establish the correct study habits that will prepare me for medical school, re-strengthen my love for the sciences, prepare for the MCAT, use this experience to mold me for the real world, and use CCNY as a guide of what my capabilities may or may not be. Simply put, CCNY is somewhat the center of my universe right now, and my goal is to use it in every possible way I can to shape me not only as a scholar, but as an adult in terms of my character.

This class will facilitate some of those goals by forcing me to become familiar with scientific writing by reading, analyzing and understanding it, exposing me to scientific/medical jargon, familiarizing me with how to write research articles as well as understand those published by peers or mentors in my field of study, and finally to be able to relate the skills I learn in this class to expand my knowledge in my field as well as be able to engage in conversation/arguments on scientific matters.

As a pre-med student, the field I plan to specialize in is cardiology as a cardio-thoracic surgeon. In order to explain what interested me in the heart, you must first understand what interested me in the sciences. As a child growing up in Kenya, Africa, I was not exposed to the harshness of life since I was lucky enough to be born into a family that was well off. Therefore, my pediatrician was one of the finest in the whole country and even practiced medicine abroad. It was always a pleasure to go to his office, and it was at that age (4 years old) that I fell in love with being at a doctor’s office or hospital and helping sick people. I would come up with any excuse to spend hours shadowing him, to the point that he even gave me my first stethoscope.  Because there isn’t an advanced emergency system such as 911 in Kenya, it was usually important to my mother, that she is able to identify exactly what is wrong with her children seeing as it was up to her to save her children’s lives. She would do this by obtaining Children’s Symptom books, medical journals, and medical publications on Children illnesses. Being the eldest of three girls, I took after my mother in the sense that I was curious and ambitious, I would challenge myself to read and become familiar with symptoms my sisters would have, as well as self-diagnosing myself and sometimes my mother.

This love was pure, and the passion was fierce, until I turned eleven years old and my mother decided to take a job abroad, leaving me and younger siblings at home with “family”. Although I was not aware of it at the time, it was this event that caused me to be interested in the field of cardiology. After my mother left, I developed a very sharp pain in my chest, it felt tight and gut-wrenching with fluctuations ranging from dull to stabbing pains. Unaware and naïve, I ignored these pains because of the rapidly growing noise that surrounded me after my mother left, I was finally exposed to the real world, with no shield and it happened all at once. This pain in my chest happened everyday for almost eight to nine years, and because I could not diagnose it, or find a medical term for it, I declared that I was ‘heartbroken’ because of the harsh realities, and unfortunate events that took place in my life during that period. And because I was ‘brokenhearted’ I decided to spend the rest of my life literally mending broken hearts. This was the main reason I wanted to deal with cardio-thoracic regions, to prevent or help others from feeling that pain, undiagnosed for years.

In addition to that, I also spent majority of my early academic career focusing and excelling in the maths and sciences. And with the help of CCNY and the classes I take here, I will be better equipped to satisfying the Pre-medical Programs requirements, taking the MCAT, and depending on my results, I would either enhance onto a Post-baccalaureate Program or directly apply to a medical school of my choosing, where I carry out the rest of my evolution into a respectable, intelligent cardio-thoracic surgeon. As for my goals in the field I plan to study, I generically would like to make a difference in the medical community and be able to take back what I learn here in the United States, back to Kenya. But for now, my main goal is to work hard and make sure that I can make it possible to set goals I plan to achieve as a surgeon.

Sincerely,

Victoria Wairimu