COSMOS Student Profiles

Brittany Horth
UCLA
UC Irvine 2005
Participated in the BioInformatics and Discrete Math Cluster

I participated in the COSMOS program during the summer of 2005, between my freshman and sophomore years of high school. I studied Bioinformatics and Discrete Mathematics because I was interested in the study of genes, specifically because my brother and I both have a pair of webbed toes on each foot and I wanted to see if I could research the genetics involved with this irregularity. The COSMOS program ended up becoming one of the best spent months of my entire life. Although the first week was a little awkward, living on a college campus at fifteen years old and not knowing anybody, I, along with everyone else, made friends very quickly. It was so neat to be around students who, like myself, were actually interested in learning. I was so accustomed to having to fit in with the "party scene" after my freshman year of high school that to be around a bunch of kids who could have fun doing research and playing games was refreshing. Additionally, I was exposed to in-depth science and math research that I would have never been able to access at my high school. I spent 3-4 hours in lab every day during the week, learning the tricks of excel on brand new Mac computers and discovering the process of coding the genome. I helped put together a group presentation about Bioinformatics and presented it to other students via PowerPoint presentation on one of our last days of camp. We took fields trips to go hiking and swimming at the beach to break from our studies and we played pick-up games of basketball and watched outdoor movies in the evenings. I was exposed to dorm life: having a tiny shelf to keep all my toiletries in the shared bathroom, sleeping five feet away from my roommate (who needed much less sleep than I did), and eating in the cafeteria as specified times. It sounds difficult, but we all adjusted quickly and enjoyed it more than we ever thought we would. I made friends that I continue to talk to today.

What I learned from COSMOS stretched far beyond Bioinformatics and Discrete Mathematics. I learned about college life and I learned about myself. Living away from my family for one month allowed me to be completely focused on everything COSMOS had to offer, which was an extremely healthy lifestyle: interactive, small classrooms that focused on fascinating information outside of a typical curriculum, arranged meals that provided every type of food imaginable, various sports including morning distance runs, basketball, soccer, and ping-pong, and a group of students that encouraged being smart and successful rather than irresponsible and immature. I can say with all honesty that it was more than difficult to return to my "normal" life after COSMOS. I only completed five days of normal high school my sophomore year before transferring to an independent studies program until I was sixteen years old, at which point I took the California High School Proficiency Exam and began attending Orange Coast College. I am receiving my AA degree in less than a month and I am hoping to transferring to UCLA Fall of 2008. I truly believe that I would have never had the courage or motivation to leave high school if it wasn't for the COSMOS program. I'm not saying that alternative education and early graduation are for everybody, but I am saying that COSMOS exposed me to a lifestyle that helped me to decide the person I wanted to be. I left high school five days into my sophomore year because I felt unchallenged, and yet I was spending hours in the classroom. I was burdened by busywork and surrounded by students who were preoccupied with parties and dating and resorted to cheating to get through their classes. COSMOS showed me what my life could be like three or four years from the point at which I attended the program. Not only did that prepare me for the future, but it showed me what I had to look forward to and motivated me to get there even faster. Now I am headed to a university where I know I will meet more people like myself and I will have endless opportunities to learn even more, and I couldn't be happier about it.