It's Like College. Except Not.

Wow. Can I just say wow? After approximately 19 hours, I am already addicted to this camp.

Let me catch you up. On Saturday afternoon, I flew down to San Francisco with my brother on an fight full of noisy kids, having already accepted that my first few days at the NSLC Health Care and Medical Camp might be super nerve-wracking and maybe even miserable.


That pretty much all changed as soon as I saw the NSLC people at Baggage Claim. I saw the totally normal grad student with an NSLC uniform and two other high school students standing behind him, looking just as nervous as I was.

They all greeted us with smiles and explained everything that was going on. We met up with a much larger group of arriving students and then took a shuttle to the Berkeley Campas. By that point I had figured out that our the TAs, who are like chaperones, are college/graduate students. All were very nice and casual. When we arrived we were escorted to the registration area where we received T-shirts, a binder and pen, the very precise and accurate schedule, and our lanyard which had a name-tag, food card, and the keys to our dorm.

After arriving I found out that there were a few hours until we had our first activity. My roommate had apparently arrived but wasn't in the dorm, so I went on the optional tour around campus. I met a few more people there. I realized a few things.

1. There were three NSLC camps: Medicine and Health Care (silver lanyards), Engineering (my brother, black lanyards), and BioTech (blue lanyards).
2. The Berkeley campus is beautiful and diverse.
3. Although there were boundaries, we had a ton more freedom than I expected.

A look out towards the bay and Golden Gate Bridge.

When I got back from the tour, I met my roommate, Sabrina, who is a senior from San Francisco. Anyway, fast forward a few introductory sessions and we meet out groups and TA. There are 15 people in my group, and many of them have become great friends. My TA's name is Steward and is absolutely hysterical AND he studies neuroscience, which is one field that is really interesting to me.

That was all yesterday. Today, we started the real medicine and leadership stuff. (NSLC= National Student Leadership Conference.) We had three lectures, a diagnostic simulation, and then clinical rounds. The clinical rounds included learning how to use a stethoscope, take vitals (blood pressure, pulse), perform CPR, and we also learned a few basic EMT skills. Today I explored a little more and went to eat crepes with a few people in my group. I can't wait for tomorrow, which is Ropes Course day!!!

Rocking the stethoscope!

Learning CPR on a dummy.

~Rose