Haley Woods
"I'm very interested in how diseases travel through the body and the courses that they take. I like researching cells and diseases and cancers and common diagnoses or terms that many people might not understand."
Resides in:
Longmeadow; graduated from Longmeadow High School
Age:
19
Major:
Biology
Honors and Awards:
2018 HCC Service Award, 2018 Honors Program Scholarship, 2018-2019 James F. Connors Scholarship (through the HCC Foundation)
Why are you studying biology?
I want to go into the medical field. Right now, I'm thinking oncology or pathology, because I'm very interested in how diseases travel through the body and the courses that they take. I started my own research website, just for the pure fun of it. I like researching things I find interesting about cells and diseases and cancers and common diagnoses or terms that many people might not understand. Like a lot of people might know what genetic engineering is, but not everybody knows what CRSPR is; it's a kind of genetic engineering – CRSPR CAS 9. So I have a genetic engineering page on my website and under that you can look up CRSPR: what is CRSPR? How does CRSPR work? CRSPR stands for Clustered Regularly Short Palindromic Repeats, and CAS 9 is a protein.
Do you have a favorite class or teacher at HCC?
I've really enjoyed my honors classes because they're challenging. Overall, I would say it was my honors biology class because Prof. Carolyn Wentzel was extremely helpful with my outside research. In class we we ran PCR – polymerase chain reaction – tests on strains of bacteria we found. I did an independent research project off of the class and I presented it at the UMass undergraduate research conference last spring. Right now I'm taking an honors colloquium with Professor Vanessa Martinez called "Health and Equity." It revolves around medical anthropology, which directly applies to my major.
What other classes are you taking?
Calculus II and microbiology
Why did you want to be the Student Trustee?
This is my second year on Student Senate, and I wanted the responsibility that comes with being in an executive board position but I also wanted to be more independent. I am very interested in the budget and OER (open educational resources), and I was just really interested in learning how the school works and how the decisions are made behind the scenes.
What else are you involved in?
I'm a New Student Orientation leader and a tutor in the Math Center. I also tutor English and biology in CAPS. I was a member of the Strategic Planning Steering Committee. I also do a lot of volunteering in Longmeadow, helping high school students apply to college. A lot of them get overwhelmed with it. They don't understand what a FAFSA is or what the Common Application is or how it works.
Why did you choose HCC?
I live very close to STCC and Asnuntuck Community College, but I chose HCC because of its very strong transfer ties to four-year schools and its excellent transfer programs, like Pathways.
Where do you want to go after HCC?
I want to transfer to a four-year school and from there apply to med school. I have a lot of colleges in mind, just cause I'm shooting for the stars. Since I'm in Pathways I'll probably apply to Cornell, Williams, Amherst, Mount Holyoke, Smith and UMass Commonwealth Honors College. Then outside of those HCC partnerships I'm thinking of applying to Northeastern, Boston University and Tufts.
What's your favorite thing about HCC?
I think it's how involved I am and how friendly everybody is. I feel a sense of belonging here that I didn't feel in high school or middle school.
What's been your most memorable or meaningful experience here at HCC?
It was right after we finished strategic planning and we had the Future Walk with all the displays of our work and the new Mission, Vision and Values. I got to talk to everyone about the work we did and how involved I was, because being on the committee was a very big commitment. Two hours a week on Mondays and then our subcommittees met outside of that. At the Future Walk, Christina (President Royal) pointed out that they used one of my proposed objectives in the plan, which I wasn't aware of until then, so that was really nice.
How do you feel about the way it turned out?
I'm very happy with it, and I really like how we have a three word Mission Statement: Educate, Inspire, Connect. I just think that it is straight forward and to the point, and it's catchy.
What's your favorite part of the Strategic Plan?
I like how it's putting an emphasis on educating teachers about technology and focusing on OER courses, because affordability is important for students and textbooks can be really expensive.
Why is education important to you?
I think it's very important to be aware of what's going on in the general community and then in the higher functions of society, and personally to me, biology is just of interest, so that's why I like it and why it's important to me.
What's been the biggest challenge for you at HCC?
In my first semester I was taking four courses here and at night I was taking an EMT course, which was 16 hours a week, four hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays and then eight hours on Saturdays, and then my house caught on fire and burned down and my three sisters and my mom and I had to live in a hotel room for six months. And with my two dogs, all in one hotel room. So that semester was very rough. It was just stressful. I wasn't getting a lot of sleep, and I had an extremely demanding course load.
What's the most important thing you've learned at HCC?
I think I've had a lot of social development. I've learned to just go up and say hi to people whereas in the past I was just shy. I think if you open up, you can build stronger relationships, which opens stronger paths.
PHOTO of Haley Woods by CHRIS YURKO
