Week 1: Introduction

Hi there!

My name is Chelsea and I am a student at the University of Oklahoma. This fall marks the beginning of my third year here at OU, and I am incredibly excited about what the new semester will bring (even though the fact that I'm a junior still freaks me out a little).

A little about myself: I was born and raised in the metropolitan Detroit area in Michigan. I am proud to say I was born in the cereal capital of the world, Battle Creek, Michigan, where the Kellogg's company was founded, but I grew up in the suburbs of Madison Heights, and later, Bloomfield Hills. I graduated from Andover High School in Bloomfield. When I was in high school, I was on the swim team and played the violin in the symphony orchestra. I also loved to join community youth ensembles outside of school--despite rivalries between the different schools in the area, I met some of my closest friends in these groups and always enjoyed making music with them. Overall, I have fond memories of my time in high school and strong ties to my hometown.

So you may be wondering, why OU? All my life, I had just assumed I would go right down the street to the University of Michigan (and there will always be a special place in my heart for this wonderful institution--Go Blue!) Honestly, I never even knew OU existed until December of my senior year, and Oklahoma was never even a consideration. However, when I was applying for colleges, I knew I wanted to go into medicine and I researched a lot of accelerated medical programs: these are the ones where the student goes through four years of undergraduate studies at an institution and then is offered direct admission into that university's medical school. When OU sent me information about their Medical Humanities program, I learned about the intermingling of science and the arts and was immediately interested. What really sealed the deal was when I finally visited the beautiful campus and absolutely fell in love.

I mean, just look at that library. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Now, I'm entering my fifth semester at OU and have loved every minute of it. I am a pre-med student majoring in psychology and minoring in chemistry and biology. When science gets tiring, however, I go back to one of my first loves, the violin. Although I don't perform with an orchestra anymore, I am fortunate to be able to play with my campus ministry's worship band. In the future, I would like to be a pediatric psychiatrist, but if that doesn't work out, then I think it would be interesting to incorporate music with psychology and perhaps go into the relatively new field of music therapy.

I am so thankful to be a Sooner and I can't wait to see what the rest of my college career has in store!