Junior Hayley Rosendo has watched a lot of true crime series and documentaries. The influence has been enough to inspire her to one day become a medical examiner. Earlier this year when StreetSquash Program Director Stefany Navarro said an application was available for a pre-college program at Columbia University that would allow Hayley to learn more about the medical profession, she was immediately interested. 

The class she chose through Columbia University’s Youth & STEM program was “Think Like a Doctor.” 

In her first class on September 25th, she says there was a discussion after showing videos from two doctors on TikTok. That particular session also focused on how robotics and artificial intelligence are making big impacts in the medical field. 

“On the first day the teacher told us the class was really about what students do in med school and how they get in.” Hayley said. 

From there, it was a three month journey of two-hour classes on Sundays touching on a variety of different topics. 

Among the topics covered were various medical cases, medical ethics, and at one point, her class was shown a video of someone having their appendix removed.

“I never looked at a bodypart like that so it was interesting,” Hayley said. “It was exciting.” 

She’s happy she had the opportunity to take the class. 

“It was really good,” Hayley said, “The teacher made sure we understood the topics and it gave me good insight into what it’s like to work in the medical field.” 

Hayley’s pursuit of being a medical examiner was given extra life after completing the course.

“It makes me more excited,” Hayley said. “And I think the classes were really well paced where it wasn’t too hard to understand.” 

Though this class is over, she’ll be spending more Sundays at Columbia University in the new year. She’s already enrolled in an “Intro to Neuroscience” class.