Beginning of My TRIP by Martie Corcoran

    Hello! My name is Martie Corcoran and I am 15 years old. I am currently a sophomore at William Tennent High School. When I heard about TRIP through my AP Seminar teacher, I knew instantly that I needed to apply. I have always been interested in science and labs, and I knew that I would love to have this opportunity. When I grow up, I would love to work as a researcher and be able to help people suffering from medical conditions (I am still figuring out what medical conditions I want to research, but as long as I get to help people I will be happy!). Being part of this program will help me to decide if working in a lab is for me, or if I would rather work directly with patients. I am also so excited to work with new people who have similar interests as me so that I can have people to talk about science with!

Currently at William Tennent, I am involved in multiple extracurricular activities, including Key Club, Student Government, and Athletic Council. I enjoy being able to volunteer my time to help my school and my community while getting to meet new people! Additionally, I am also taking AP Seminar. In this class, I get to research new ideas and work with my classmates to form conclusions about our current world and potential solutions to these issues. I find learning about new topics to be very interesting, which helped me realize that I wanted to be involved in the field of science and research! 

Alongside my love for science and research, I also enjoy making art. Currently, I am taking Art II and hopefully can take more art classes in the future. In my art classes, I have been able to work with different materials and have been able to experiment with new ideas and techniques (which could be why I love science so much too!). Some of my favorite things to work with have been colored pencils, sketching pencils, and chalk pastels (which is what I made the landscape painting with)! I really love making portraits and landscapes of things that are important to me. So far I’ve drawn/painted a few of my friends and some of my family’s favorite locations. I find it really special to be able to give people something that I worked so hard on and to be able to show them how much I care about them! 

My first day at the lab was extremely fun and interesting! We were able to prepare the fly food and use micropipettes. It was a wonderful introduction to the TRIP program. I was so excited to be around so many new people and have my first experience in a lab! I am so excited to see what my future in this program entails and I am so grateful for this opportunity! Hopefully, this is the start of my long journey in the field of science!