Dear Science, Do you ever stop to think about how far we’ve come in the world of science and technology? Phones, medicine, the internet, electricity, modern transportation... It’s all so beautiful and honestly amazing. To think that all of this may have started from something as simple as discovering fire to keep warm or learning …
Personal History: Write about your name
Write about your name. Where did it come from? What does it mean? This one's easy, my name is Edidiong. It originates from Akwa Ibom, a state in Nigeria, and it means blessing. I like my name a lot. Out of all my siblings, I’m the only one with a traditional name, and it makes …
Dear Aliens
Dear Aliens, The Earth is a scary place. It is full of hate, cruelty, and destruction: there's rape, murder, all kinds of misdeeds. Not to mention, the people starving and homeless, while other people have 12 cars and a golden chihuahua.... Injustice. Discrimination. Exclusivity when there should be Inclusivity. Conformity in a world of diversity. …
Dear Reborn PatternMD
thought the hardest part of finding a passion project would be coming up with something meaningful. It wasn’t. The hardest part has been finding ways to change PatternMD to find where it can have the most real effect. At first, it was supposed to help doctors diagnose faster. That felt like the obvious solution—reduce delay, …
Dear PatternMD
It’s difficult to think of something that could genuinely help people—and even harder to follow through with it. Ideas are easy to romanticize. You imagine the impact, the lives changed, the problems solved. But the moment you try to build something real, doubt creeps in. You start asking yourself if it’s even good enough. If …
Dear Resting Lab Face
In all honesty, my new motto entering the lab was: “Act like you give a sht.”* I would literally repeat it to myself before walking in. Not because I don’t care — I do. I genuinely love research. I love thinking deeply, solving problems, contributing to something bigger than myself. But I realized something uncomfortable: …
Dear Lab
Dear Lab, Coming into the lab, I worried I wouldn’t fit in. Girl straight out of Nigeria. New to microbiology. New to American academia. New to everything. And then I walked into a room full of Indians, other Nigerians, Pakistanis, Koreans — Christians, Muslims, Hindus, atheists. Different sexualities. Different genders. Different ages. Different stories. And …
Dear Imperfection
Dear Imperfection, As an artist, dealing with you comes with the territory. You show up in brushstrokes, uneven lines, colors that don’t blend the way I imagined. In art, imperfection can even be beautiful. But as a researcher, you terrify me. I think about the weight of getting things wrong. Not small mistakes — not …
Dear Money
Dear Money, You’re an uncomfortable topic in medicine. One people dance around, soften, or pretend doesn’t matter. But you do matter — not as the goal, but as the context. When I think about becoming a physician-scientist, I don’t imagine wealth as excess or status. I think about sustainability. Freedom. The ability to choose meaningful …
Dear MCAT
Dear MCAT, You’ve been a lot. I’ve officially started studying for you, and honestly, it’s been intense in a way I didn’t fully expect. A lot of the content feels unfamiliar, and some of it feels like I’m learning a new language all over again. But I’ve found that sticking to Anki, committing to a …
Creating My Autobiography 