The BioBuilder Apprenticeship program helped me get my foot in the doorway before going into the Tufts Medical Program. It prepared me for everything.”
In this interview, Presley notes how they haven’t seen a single program or organization that is similar to BioBuilder. Presley’s is an expert opinion, given the range of programs that they have engaged in.
Presley is currently an 11th grade student at Prospect Hill Academy Charter School. His first BioBuilder experience came as an 8th grader in an exploratory program BioBuilder ran in the Learning Lab @ LabCentral. After a 9th grade “zoom only” biology class, Presley joined BioBuilder’s High School Apprenticeship Challenge as a 10th grader which gave them lots of hands-on lab training and reinforced their interest in molecular biology. Their Apprenticeship biodesign project developed an at-home HIV test. Though Presley came into the Apprenticeship thinking they would pursue a political science in college, the BioBuilder experience shifted their ambitions to study biochemistry in college.
Their experience as an Apprentice has led to additional professional experiences during high school, notably a three week summer internship at Tufts Medical Center in a research lab studying cholera. This year, Presley kicked off the all-new BioBuilder Student Ambassador program, presenting BioBuilder’s opportunities to other students at Prospect Hill Academy Charter School and recording a lab training video for this year’s BioBuilderClub teams.
Read the show notes