The Start of my TRIP by Tina Tian

Hi everyone! My name is Tina Tian, and I’m a rising junior at Haddonfield Memorial High School in New Jersey. Living in a small town is super different from my childhood - I lived in the big city Shanghai, in China, for 11 years before I moved here in 6th grade. Without the constant noises on the street and people chattering around at all times, it feels more calm and peaceful, but at the same time, I feel like a piece of connection to the others is missing. So whenever someone asks if I preferred living in Shanghai or in Haddonfield, my answer is always Shanghai, but I act like it is a hard decision to make since I do not want to disappoint them too much.
In school, I am participating in the environmental club as an active member, which gave me lots of cool experiences including horseshoe crab rescues, doing carbon inventories using a tree-measuring stick, drawing wood ornaments for sale during Christmas, and many more. This led to my participation in a student-led organization called Detox NJ. We advocate for the cleanup of Superfund sites, which are toxic waste sites, and I took on the role of Director of Marketing to better voice our concerns regarding the environment to the public. In my spare time, I also LOVE birdwatching, either from my backyard or going on long trips to beaches and forests, since birds have a special place in my heart for being super fluffy and adorable (except for seagulls). Some other things I do include piano, tennis, watching variety shows, and trying to bake but failing most times.

Since elementary school, I have always loved the sciences and I was always excited to go to a science class. I was very lucky to have extremely nice and dedicated science teachers and instructors that truly ensured my interest in the science field. According to some of my friends and family, the science field did not seem like the best major to pursue, where the only options for a career are either boring lab work or being a doctor or a nurse. However, I completely do NOT agree with their opinions, because there is so much more to the science field! It is also such a meaningful field to go into because I always believed that science can truly change our world and push us in a better direction, making more meaningful discoveries while bringing more conveniences to our world. TRIP is a great opportunity for me to experience the field of research, and I am so excited to design my own project and go through all the trials and errors to hopefully lead to a successful conclusion. We have learned basic laboratory techniques and made our fly food for our first small research project by this blog, and it has already sparked my interest in what’s coming next. I am more than excited to start a challenging, but unique and rewarding journey with TRIP!