Island Girl to Stanford University

My name is Liliana Martinez and I am a rising senior at Gifft Hill School and have been accepted in to the 2018 Stanford Summer Institutes course of Investigations in Bioscience and Biotechnology. I moved to St. John USVI in 2015. Ever since I was in 9th grade going to Stanford has been a goal of mine, and now that goal is becoming a reality.

For the past two years I have been applying to this program with no luck, but I persisted and applied once again this past November for the third time. The application process was extremely hard to go through living on an island with no power at the time. I remember trying to work on my application in between walking to school, carrying water from the cistern, and doing homework by candle light. So trying to get online to submit my application was a complete challenge. 

This year more than ever I am incredibly curious to learn about the brain. My subtopic for the program is in neuroscience which is a subject that I am extremely passionate about. I am extremely interested in this subject because of my little brother Seth who suffered from epilepsy as a toddler. When I was little I would go to all of his doctor appointments and ask so many questions sometimes more then my mom. Then I would go to the school library and read books on the brain and what affects it. I wrote my essay on Seth and how my curiosity for the brain developed.

When my mom told me that I was accepted I didn't believe her and asked her to repeat what she said like 10 times. I was jumping off the walls and so excited when it sunk in that I actually got into a summer program at Stanford. This program is a 3 week program where I will be staying on the Stanford campus learning from their professors. I was given a scholarship for half of the tuition with a remaining balance of $3,500. Any amount would be greatly appreciated. I am an ambitious island girl trying to get to Stanford so I can one day travel to developing countries and assist people.