2021.09.29 Wednesday / Published in news & event

A Meaningful Summer: Unique in Many Ways

The summer vacation is going to conclude. Our G11 student Cindy has spent a meaningful summer participating various kinds of activities. How did BIS high school students spend their summer? Let’s have view through what Cindy shared with us.

Hi I’m Cindy Hsu, BIS G11 student. I have been in BIS for three years.

Wow—it’s August already! Back in June I realized that I had a great academic year but I also have set my goal to go to medical school. I had decided to use summer to get better and come back the following year more prepared.

Remember, Balance between relaxation and productivity is the key. Here are my few tips forthe aspiring pre-med students (and other subject-focused students) to ensure that summer is asuccess.

01 Medical related Events

Summer research in a bio-science company

It’s been a pleasure to be able to experience what it’s like to be trained as a professional biological scientist that works on genetics and vaccines products that requires anti-bacterial materials. Spending 8 days in WuXi-Biologics, we have to learn how to write record papers, how to properly dress up before going to an anti-bacterial environment, proper ways to clean bio-safety cabinets, objects and hands…etc. This was a great chance to not only learn new things, but it also helps build up the right knowledge to protect yourself from harmful environments (such as COVID-19).

WuXi Biologics 药明生物

WuXi Biologics is a leading global open-access biologics technology platform offering end-to-end solutions to empower organizations to discover, develop, and manufacture biologics from concept to commercial manufacturing. The company’s history and achievements demonstrate its commitment to providing a truly ONE-stop service offering and strong value proposition to its global clients.

Clinic volunteering and community work

After spending 8 days in WuXi-Biologics, I continued my summer activity in Healman Clinic. Every week, I spent 2 days in Healman Clinic learning mostly the business way of medicine, coming up with various ways to teach, advertise, attract customers and building trust. As a student that has only learned some surface level business knowledge, I had to put in more effort into the project that we are currently doing to come up with a reliable and working plan. Throughout this internship, I’ve developed thinking and research skills that will help me in my future academic endeavors. Although it isn’t mostly about medicine, I have still developed business knowledge that will help me in the future if I were to open a hospital of my own.

Healman Clinic

Wuxi HealmanClinic, founded in 2019, is the first and the only licensed physical therapy clinic in Wuxi. It is also a medical institution that can be reimbursed and paid by CPIC, GBG and other commercial insurance institutions. In July this year, after reaching a cooperation agreement with Kaiyi Hospital (Columbia), HealmanClinic is settled in Wuxi Yikang Outpatient Department, former location of Columbia Clinic, to carry out professional physical therapy. Not only does it support the settlement of more commercial insurance, but also it supports the settlement of Wuxi medical insurance (Yibao).

Preparing for Biology Olympiads

As my parents and Ms. Nicole found out my goal of studying medicine in the future, they suggested me to sign up for British and American Biology Olympiads to help me with my university applications. I have started to prepare throughout the summer by using some of my free time to study for Biology knowledge that I have not yet learned in my past 3 years. That way, I can improve my knowledge and be more prepared for the competition I will be facing in university life.

Biology Olympiads 生物奥赛

British and American Biology Olympiads attract thousands of students from US and UK every year. To compete with the international students for gold, silver and bronze medals, students can increase the advantage in applying for medical and biological majors in British and American universities.

02 Non-Medical related Events

NAQT China National Championship

NAQT is a quiz bowl like competition, where teams have to compete against each other by pressing the buzzer and answering to the questions that are given by the moderator. There are nearly 100 different topics and over thousands of questions, covering both academic subjects and non-academic subjects alike. I was the leader of our NAQT team, organizing all the practice rounds with other teams before the real competition. In our first practice round, we lost to the other team by nearly 200 points, which really broke down our confidence. However, Ms. Nicole and Ms. Anne encouraged us a lot during that time, so we finally decided to continue on with our NAQT trip, making the decision to study hard despite how tough it seemed. Later on, we attended 5 more practice rounds before the competition, successfully winning all of them and eventually achieving 5th place in the end with a win streak of 10, which was very unexpected but also something that made our entire team extremely happy. In the end, our team received a gold award and 3 of our team members received personal awards. This was a great chance for me to be able to show off my knowledge and to enjoy playing a quiz game with different opponents from all around China, testing my capabilities against likeminded individuals.

NAQT

NAQT organizes and runs the premier middle school, high school, community college, and college quiz bowl championships in the world. In addition to its international championships, each year NAQT supported more than 1,000 tournaments. During the past 24 years, over 10,000 schools have participated in NAQT events. Quiz bowl players in the world consider NAQT championships as the highest level annual festivals and the biggest interdisciplinary quiz bowl events where they can pursue knowledge and make peer friends.

World Youth Economics Forum

WYEF Business Simulation really challenges your presentation skills, calculation skills and team working skills. Before WYEF 2021, we successfully went through 2 rounds of Business Simulation by getting top 60% of all companies and by getting a nearly perfect score (29.5/30) in our 3rd presentation. WYEF is different from the previous 2 competitions - it requires fast thinking skills, good cooperation skills and excellent social skills. It was tough 2 weeks before the competition, we did lots of preparation in advance for the booth and PowerPoints. During the competition, we had to endure 4 grueling days of sleep deprivation. Our rank went up steadily from 70th place to 8th place, however, due to bad luck, we eventually fell from 8th to the 25th. We managed to do well in our 2nd presentation and got an award for it. Participating in WYEF not only improves public speaking, but also creative thinking skills and research skills. Because of my own awesome experience, I really encourage all students to join if they have the chance. It was not only super fun, but I also learned a lot of new things throughout the course of the competition.

World Youth Economics Forum

A combination of economic-related module such as Economic Committees, ASDAN Business Simulation National Finals, EEO European Economics Olympiad National Finals, LIBF Student Investor Challenge National Finals. Explore the perspective from economic experts and business leaders! Designed workshops and events providing students with a worldwide academic feast in economics and business.

World Youth Economics Forum

MIT MUN

The MIT Model United Nations Conference is the premier international Model UN conference for high school students with a special focus on small committee sizes.

Unlike other conferences, in which many students encounter little to no leeway for participation inside massive general sessions, MITMUNC leverages committee sizes in such a way that gives students the most opportunity for personal contribution and distinction.

MITMUNC is run by a dedicated group of talented and passionate MIT undergraduates united by our organization’s mission, to inspire high school students to become enlightened leaders of tomorrow. MITMUNC pushes its delegates to formulate feasible solutions to difficult controversies, challenging them to convince others who may potentially have different agendas.

HSYLC 2021

HSYLC is a 10-day event that involves team cooperation, essay writing skills, organization skills and presentation skills. In these 10 days, we have to attend 3 Chinese seminars, 3 English seminars, 1 Capstone project, many lectures and house bonding events. To apply, you have to have excellent experiences, achievements, English skills and essay writing skills. I was very surprised that I was accepted, but also glad to know that I have this opportunity to attend such an event. Attendees are students that come from different schools in China, teachers are university students from top universities like Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Yale, Qsinghua…etc. The process is actually pretty painful, waking up at 7, going to sleep at 12, also finishing up tasks when you only have at most 2 hour to work on them. However, despite the painful process, I actually enjoyed it. With lots of fun subjects that you can choose and lots of fun people that you get to work it, waking up at 7 is not that hard. Allowing you to explore more computer functions, theory of vaccines, exploration of human immune systems, discover how human body functions, math behind Rubik’s cube, how society and laws have changed in these past 100 years, and different forms of arts. Unfortunately, this year it is forced to be online, which the fun and the nervousness kind of disappeared. I hope I can attend this next year and I hope this will turn offline next year.

HSYLC

The HAUSCR Summit for Young Leaders in China (HSYLC) brings the liberal arts experience to Chinese high school students of all backgrounds through Freshman Seminar style classes taught by Harvard undergraduates. Students participate in a myriad of activities including speaker sessions, extracurriculars, and house games. For the second year, we will be running a virtual iteration, HSYLC-X, bringing together more than 1300 students and 100 seminar leaders each year. HSYLC is Harvard's largest program in China and many HSYLC students have matriculated to Harvard College.

03 Non-Academic Activities

But of course, studying does not make up my entire lie. Playing sports and reading during the summer holiday is also very important as a student. Exercising or at least moving around every day helped me release stress and maintain a healthy body. Even if you don’t enjoy playing sports (Like volleyball), walking around the apartment for 20 minutes every day will be extremely helpful. For students that perhaps don’t enjoy reading books as much, finding an English comic website or app is a good choice. It is not only a good method of pushing you into reading English media, but also makes you enjoy reading, even if it’s not literary content. Still, reading an actual book for 30-60 minutes every day is still very important to the development of English skills.