1. University of Puerto Rico
Cayey, Puerto Rico
Natural Sciences Department
Biology
Professors E. Díaz and E. González
Delaine M. Zayas-Bazán Burgos
A scientist in the making
“Science is more than a body of knowledge; it’s a way of thinking, a way of skeptically
interrogating the universe.” This thought of Carl Sagan seems to be approved by all of the
members of the scientific community. I am an eighteen year old scientist in the making. I have
just begun taking courses in this new phase of my scientific career. Although inexperienced, I
have taken some courses that have helped me immensely in my formation and growth as a young
scientist. During this last summer, I was enrolled in the Research Initiative for Scientific
Enhancement, R.I.S.E. Program. During the program, I was exposed to many new experiences
and to a course specially designed to help young students bridge between past stages, as well as
the style of college life.
In this course, Introduction to Principles, Methodologies and Research Techniques in
Biology, we had to do some assignments as part of the growing process. These works and

2. assignments are published here in my online portfolio under the different pages. The first of
these assignments, which is directly related to the class, is the Unifying Themes Table. This table
helped me correlate the Unifying Themes of Biology with the Properties of Life. There are eight
unifying themes in the field of biology and there are seven properties that define what is alive.
The relationship between them is very important, since they were present in all of the topics later
discussed in the course. The understanding of Biology, which is the study of life and the themes
that correlate it to different aspects not only biological but universal, gave me a broader vision of
the world surrounding me.
Another assignment in this portfolio is the reflection about the experiences gained during
the study trips. During the summer, everything was not work, we had time to mingle, to make
new friends, to meet professors, and to interact with them in other scenarios. One of the
opportunities we had to do this, while learning was during the study trips. We were taken to
Guánica, to visit the dry forest, and to Río Grande, to visit the pluvial forest. Both trips were
exhausting but extremely insightful. Going there with prepared professionals and peers with the
same scientific inquiry gave me a completely different experience, to the previous one I had
going as a simple tourist. In this reflection, I narrate that experience and the brand new vision it
gave me.
The last but most important work done during the summer and found here in the portfolio
is my Proposal. I had never heard the word “proposal” in the sense it was presented to us during
this summer. The research proposal was an amazing experience, and of all the works that helped
me grow, this was the one that transformed me the most. Looking for information, reading, and
understanding biological concepts and relating them to a research investigation was no easy task.

3. Although it was very complicated at first, once I grasped the concept, I excelled my expectations
and delivered a proposal that made me proud.
All of these assignments, along with the assignments I am presently doing for the R.I.S.E.
program, are helping me become the scientist I want to become. The program placed me under
stress and pressure to get the best out of me, as carbon is pressured to form a beautiful diamond.
This has prepared me not only for college activities, but for life itself. My purpose in life is to
investigate, to study, to learn, to help others and, above all, to make science. I could have only
discovered this through the growth I have experienced during the summer bridge course. “Great
inventions are never, and great discoveries are seldom, the work of any one mind. Every great
invention is really an aggregation of minor inventions, or the final step of a progression. It is not
usually a creation, but a growth, as truly so as is the growth of the trees in the forest.” — Robert
H. Thurston. And just like that, the great inventions of me as a scientist is an aggregation of these
minor inventions that will help me progress towards that goal.