Dear Class of 2026,

 

Congratulations! Soon you will begin your SSP, which is truly a wonderful way for you to close out your four years of high school. This is a time to explore your passions, try new things, spend time with friends, embrace alone-time, challenge yourself, and hopefully relax. For my SSP I decided to have two internships: One in human medicine and one in veterinary medicine. Although I have been planning to be a vet for years, over the course of my internships I actually realized that I want to pursue human medicine instead. This is why taking on new experiences during SSP is so important—I was initially planning to just do the veterinary internship, but I decided to do my human medicine one just in case, and it ended up changing my life. On a less serious note, I learned more about my music taste. Most days I took a few mile walk along the Charles River, and I experimented with a lot of different Spotify playlists. You should aim to find a good balance between making memories with friends before graduation—I scheduled a weekly walk with one of my close friends, which was super fun—and spending one-on-one time with yourself, as there won’t be much opportunity for that next year. 

 

If I could have a “do-over” of my SSP, I would try to incorporate time to learn a new hobby, like an art project, new instrument, or cooking. My new experience was my internship at MGH—which I do not at all regret; it was absolutely incredible—but between my internships, classes, and a team sport, my schedule was nearly just as busy as during the school year. It would have been nice to use this time to learn a new hobby, since again, there won’t be a lot of time for that in the future. As I mentioned, my schedule was similar to during the school year in terms of the amount of time that I spent on my SSP pillars. However, it doesn’t necessarily need to be this way (I was largely over the hours requirement). Work-wise, though, it was a significantly easier load. I would be out of the house for the same amount of hours but rather than having five/six hours of work every night, I only had one/two, including AP studying, SSP essays/website building, and placement tests for my college. 

 

I read “What It’s Like to Be a Dog: And Other Adventures in Animal Neuroscience”, by Gregory Berns. I chose this book because I love animals, I’m interested in neuroscience/psychology (I’m planning to major in Biopsychology, Cognition, and Neuroscience”, and at the time of choice, I was planning to become a vet. Although I’ve since decided otherwise, I’m still obsessed with animals, so I enjoyed the read regardless. This book connected to my SSP because it connected neuroscience with animal behavior—I observed neurosurgery at MGH and shadowed a veterinarian once a week. I would recommend this book to others because it explains scientific concepts in really digestible ways and it humanizes animals in a way that makes them more relatable. If more people read this book perhaps there would be more empathy towards non-human creatures. 

 

I would recommend utilizing the list of potential SSP internships/mentors provided by the school. This is how I found my MGH internship. I think this list is a great resource that leads to amazing experiences because it’s compiled of people who have either already hosted an SSP student and know the process and/or who are excited to teach and passionate about their careers. Out of all my experiences, I learned the most from my time at MGH because the doctor I was shadowing was most passionate about teaching. My final warning is that you might have some awkward amounts of time during the day with nothing to do. A few days a week I would go into school for math and history, for example, but they would be two hours apart with nothing in between. It’s hard to be social during that time because everyone is busy with different schedules. This is normal and most people I know had this same experience, so embrace it and try to be as productive with this time as you can, whether that is studying, taking walks outside, exercising at the NAC, or even drawing/doing something creative. 

 

Have fun!

 

Good luck,

Presley