Postbaccalaureate Research Education Program at UC Davis

To close out the year on an energetic note: Emari Mann created a TikTok to depict a typical day in her life as a PREP@UCD scholar: professional development, research, social time with her cohort, and more research.

Check it out!

Clarification: the postbacc program is PREP@UC Davis, which differs from the one referenced by a commenter. 

Thanks, Emari! We will miss you and the others in the 2023-2024 cohort!

Winning a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF GRFP) award is a major achievement for aspiring scientists and researchers. Beyond the financial support it offers (which, let's be real, is fantastic!), the GRFP presents amazing personal and professional growth opportunities. In this blog post, l explore the journey of applying for, winning, and thriving in the aftermath of the GRFP.

The PREP scholars decided to explore a bit further past Davis and headed to Big Basin Redwoods State Park in Santa Cruz county! 

To explore the multitude of hiking opportunities in NorCal, we explored one of the 49 redwood state parks California has to offer. Not sure if we'll hit the other 48 anytime soon, but it's good to know they're there. 

We had a few goals when going into this hike: 

Every year for the past 20-ish years, the T32 Training Program in Molecular and Cellular Biology hosts an annual retreat at Fallen Leaf Lake to foster cohesiveness and community.  In October 2023, we joined the UC Davis T32 graduate students and faculty on their retreat.  

A brisk 3.5-hour drive to Fallen Leaf Lake, a smallish lake near Lake Tahoe, took us to a cabin-style conference center (and resort where Stanford alumni spend their summers) that has stood for more than a century. Over this retreat weekend, I took in the wooded scenery and intriguing science.

During my time as a PREP scholar at UC Davis, I have had the opportunity to meet amazing scientists who've visited Davis to give seminars. This fall, these included two speakers from the Storer Lectureship in the Life Sciences series.

After a whole year here at UC Davis, my time here has come to an end. There are many creatures that I will miss in this charming college town. 

Growing up in Los Angeles, California, my lifestyle was very different from the slow-paced world of UC Davis. At UC Davis, instead of being surrounded by buildings and traffic, I found myself surrounded by nature and agriculture. Soon after arriving at Davis, I found myself slowing down and taking in the beautiful scenery.

As I approach my last few weeks in Davis, I have a satisfying birds-eye-view of my yearlong journey as a PREP@UCD scholar. This past year has been a rollercoaster of highs and lows. I enjoyed the highs of submitting the NSF GRFP, completing the polar plunge with my cohort, and networking my way through graduate school interview season.

Overcoming mental health challenges has been a formidable and paradoxically critical part of my path towards becoming a scientist. I vividly recall spending two months in an intensive outpatient program at St. Josephs Hospital, attending daily group therapy sessions to manage my depression. While I had hoped that this period would be enough to regain a sense of normalcy, it became apparent that I needed more time and therapy to heal.

As a Southern California Native, Davis and Sacramento had been my only taste of what Northern California was like. Davis’ 113 ℉ heat wave back in September was unbearable, the hottest climate I ever had the misfortune to experience; the rest of the month still hovered around the 80’s. To say I was excited to finally experience weather below 70 ℉ at San Francisco in early October was an understatement. I couldn’t wait to experience this famous city that was well known across the globe and would always pop up in cultural media and cinema.

After nearly two months of editing our NSF GRFP essays, all five of the 2022-23 PREP scholars finally submitted our applications and immediately packed into cars and drove east to Fallen Leaf Lake.

We spent the weekend of October 14th-16th at the highly anticipated Molecular and Cellular Biology T32 Retreat. We'd been told that we would hear science talks from graduate students in the training program, network with other students and faculty, and explore the lake (situated about 1 mile from Lake Tahoe).