Christine Lee, AB 2023

I’m Christine Lee, a third year undergraduate student at Harvard College in Quincy House. I am studying neuroscience with a secondary in Ethnicity, Migration, Rights. Currently, I am also on the premedical track hoping to attend medical school someday. Part of my interest in neuroscience came from how it offers an intersection between the hard and soft sciences. I really love psychology and how it lends itself to social anthropology, and neuroscience is also underscored by the biology and chemistry of how the brain works in conjunction with all the other parts of the body.

Healthcare is not just about chemical formulas and molecules - it’s also about interacting with people - so this would be a cool way to explore both sides of it. I am also using my secondary in Ethnicity, Migration Rights to dive a bit deeper into the more humanistic aspect of this and get to know people in historically excluded communities better. These are the kinds of people I would love to work with some day as a medical provider.

I want to bring medical services to areas where they are not as easily accessible, speaking as someone who identifies as coming from a low income background. I definitely know how intimidating the healthcare system can be with insurance policies and all and also in interacting with healthcare providers, so I can’t imagine how much more daunting it can be if you are actively being put at a disadvantage by the government. I want to bring what I learn in medical school and beyond to where it can be most useful.

My favorite memories on campus were the spontaneous moments where I was just hanging out with friends. It’s nothing particularly fancy or extraordinary, but it’s just small moments like when all my friends were sitting and eating together in the dining hall, even though we didn’t necessarily plan it. Or we decided to study in the library or just hang out in the dorms.

I’m definitely looking forward to making more of those small memories in the coming years.

I was really lucky to live in Boston this past school year, and I was able to pay the rent entirely by myself, making the conscious decision to invest in that. But online learning was just so taxing. The spring semester was particularly hard for me mentally. It was a struggle to get myself to do the things I knew that I had to do. We lost valuable student teacher interactions where you can just go to office hours or see them after class. Fingers crossed it will get better next year!

My English class I took this past semester was really, really great. It was “Memory in Asian American Literature” taught by Professor Janet Zong York, and she is just one of the most incredible human beings. She engaged us in discussion and really treated us as equals in the discussions we had during class. She was open and willing to listen to all of us as students and hear our perspectives. I respect her so much, and I really grew a lot as a thinker, a reader, and a writer. Because of that class I started reading a lot more books, so I highly recommend it.

Christine Lee

AB 2023 | Neuroscience

Compiled and interviewed by Felicia Ho