The Point Flagship scholarship for LGBTQ students provides financial assistance, mentoring, leadership programming, and more, to help LGBTQ students attending 4-year colleges or graduate schools achieve their dreams. Learn more about the flagship scholarship program and apply to join this year’s class.
I chose to study biochemistry in college because I wanted to solve some of the world's biggest problems such as cancer and antibiotic resistance. As I learned more I became strongly convinced that the complexity of cancer biology also demands a strong grasp on physical and computational sciences in addition to the traditional biological sciences I was exposed to, therefore I made a last-minute career change and decided to pursue a master's degree in computational biology to make up for my previous lack of quantitative skills, in preparation for my MD-PhD application.
I was a fish vet back home in China and my proudest moment was when I excised a tumor from a fish's fin and managed to keep him alive afterwards.
Delilah by Florence + The Machine It's the song that was on repeat the day I first got off the plane from China to the U.S. alone and began a new chapter in my life, it reminds me of home.
Grey's Anatomy; It's been a constant in my life for 10 years now and I mostly just play it in the background while I do other work. It brings up the passion I have for medicine and public health. Besides I like how the show portrays every doctor as kind of a workaholic obsessed with their work, exactly like me.
I enjoy spending my free time cooking/baking, spending time with my pets (rabbit and fish!), reading, exercising and occasionally shopping.
It was an interesting process to adapt to a college environment as a first-generation foreign student. Because I was lucky enough to be in a very liberal and diverse university, UC Berkeley, I received more support about my sexuality and identity than I thought I could have or even deserved to have.
The virtual working environment means that there is no more commute time which was what I used to use as my break time to clear my head so now I give myself a one hour break in the morning and in the afternoon to listen to some music and enjoy some tea so I can slow down the pace of my work when it gets overwhelming.
I am still adjusting to it and I will also be a student who is going back to school this coming semester. The pandemic cut off a lot of personal interactions so I am very much looking forward to connecting with people in person and hopefully getting to form a friend circle once the semester begins.
This post’s responses were submitted by René Plessner Point Scholarship recipient Manny Faris (He/Him).
Davy is currently studying Computational Biology and Quantitative Genetics at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Read more about the Point Flagship Scholarship for LGBTQ students program here.
