Author: Vrinda Iyengar

As this school year settles in, high school students in the Bay area, namely high school juniors are beginning to decide on which summer programs they will and won’t be applying to. To take some pressure off of our readers, we sat down with a student who was admitted to the Summer Science Program for the Bacterial Genomics track this past summer to share a little bit about her experience and some tips for how to write your essays and go about applying to these programs.

Give readers who may be unfamiliar an overview of what SSP is.

SSP is an intensive research summer program for high school juniors in the fields of astrophysics, biochemistry, bacterial genomics, and synthetic chemistry. It is a five week program in which you conduct research write a paper and present a poster presentation. I did bacterial genomics, which studied the evolution of stress resistance in a non-pathogenic bacterium, which for my case was Vibrio Natriegens.

Can you describe a typical day/week at SSP?

A typical day at SSP would begin at 8 AM. Typically, we would start the day off with lectures and then we would go into the lab. Then after working in the lab until 1 PM, we would go and eat lunch, and then we would come back and do more lectures and labs. At around 5 PM, we would be able to go back to our dorms and get ready for dinner. After dinner, we might go back to the science building to do more labs or finish up our homework until around 9 PM. 

What are some things you think a prospective SSP student should emphasize in their application?

I think for the SSP application what you should emphasize most is your interest in the specific field that you will be applying for. I think what helped me get into SSP was my interest in genomics which I highlighted throughout my application. SSP doesn’t have an activities list so what is the biggest focus are your essays. Leverage your essays to build a narrative that supports you as a student interested in a specific field: explain why you’re interested in the field, and explain why you have done so far to explore your interest and how you can further explore these interests at SSP.

What are some things you learned at SSP that you will carry into your professional career professional career? 

Some of the things I learned at SSP include how to talk to professors which we would interact with a lot, and techniques like DNA extraction and transformation. I think all of this knowledge will definitely help me as I pursue a career in the sciences.

What was the most enjoyable part of your experience and/or the most surprising thing you learned?

For me, the most enjoyable part of my experience at SSP was both meeting a bunch of amazing people and also being able to conduct wet lab research and analyze how genetic mutations confer antibiotic resistance. Throughout the program, we were also taken on field trips, which were really fun and I was able to see my first theater performance at SSP!

Would you recommend SSP to our readers? If yes, why and to whom would you recommend it to?

I would definitely recommend SSP to anyone that is interested in the sciences. Some people may be concerned about the cost of SSP, but the program does give significant financial aid, so please keep that in mind and don’t let that discourage you from trying to apply to SSP. I would recommend SSP because it really exposes you to research and collaboration, and you are also able to talk with many many scientists in the fields that you may be interested in.