Get to Know Me Through My Dream by Sheline Man

Hi! My name is Sheline Man and I am currently a junior at Council Rock North High School. It is a pleasure for me to be part of the TRIP family and it has also become the reason why I look forward to Saturdays every week! A fun fact about me is that I moved to America the summer of my freshman year all the way from the opposite side of the globe: Hong Kong. It definitely took me a huge transitional period to get used to how things here work. Yet, it is also an opportunity for me to step outside my comfort zone over and over again. With that being said, I can speak English, Mandarin, and Cantonese fluently and I am also self-learning Korean and Japanese through anime and Korean-drama (another reason for me to love Saturdays is when all the episodes are uploaded). 

I decided to take my dream in action for the rest of high school.

With schools and institutions shutting down thanks to the coronavirus, I took advantage of this long break and spent a lot of time navigating through the internet and social media. This is when I finally discovered what I want to do in the future. I have been watching many informational youtube channels such as the Infographic Show and TEDtalk, and swiping through numerous TikTok doctors/professionals such as Dr. Anthony Youn (@tonyyounmd), Dr. Richard Brown (@therealtiktokdoc), and Hyram (@skincarebyhyram). These holistic plastic surgeons and professionals educated the public through actual surgical contents and analyzed the ingredients within a product while making it humorous and enjoyable. I told myself that “this is the kind of life and environment that I want to be in when I grow up.” Thus, after binge watching all of their videos, I decided to take my dream in action for the rest of high school. I doubled my science course load in junior year and planned on doing the same thing in senior year, as well as following a pre-med track in college. I applied to many extra curriculars and was elected as my school’s American Heart Association Club co-president as well as my school’s Rock Ambassador.

If you are reading this as a future TRIP Initiative applicant, I would like to share my story with you. To be honest, in my freshmen year, I was too scared to apply for any positions and activities at my school because as a new incomer not only into the school, but also into the country. I felt like I had no place to speak nor to share my thoughts before people who spent more time in the same place. Yet, I was wrong. I learnt that applying to something does not mean carrying all the responsibility by yourself, but rather sharing your opinion and collaborating with others in order to be successful. That is what I received in TRIP. Not only does it provide an opportunity for us to conduct our own research, but it also fulfills extra knowledge that we would never learn in a regular science course offered by schools.