A Hardworking Student, my Katie

My youngest daughter, Katie Anderson, coasted along in the public schools of Montgomery County, Maryland doing well in her studies when she had a good teacher and doing substantially worse when she had a bad teacher. When she was in about the 8th grade, she decided to become a more serious-minded student. In the 9th grade she took some Honors courses, including a newly offered Honors physics course. She continued taking honors and AP courses until she graduated from high school. Her school barely recognized her existence, however. When she graduated, she had taken 7 AP exams and had all 4's and 5's in the tests. She entered the Honors Program at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in biotechnology, classified as a sophomore due to her credits from her AP course work. She was awarded a RIT Presidential Scholarship and the Nancy and Bruce B. Bates Nathaniel Rochester Society Science Scholarship.

At RIT she worked extremely hard. In her 2nd year, she began the first of a series of research projects with professors in the biotechnology sciences. She has taken very large numbers of credits each quarter, until this year when she cut back to more normal course loads. She will graduate with many, many extra credits. Katie has worked as a teaching assistant for several courses and worked as a note-taker for RIT's Access Services and Academic Accommodations. She also serves as the secretary of the Honors Council.

She also organized a women's Lacrosse league at RIT as co-founder, which she has continued to run as president into her 4th year. She also became active in the Habitat Club at RIT and played a major role in organizing its events in her 3rd year. Now, in her fourth year, she is the President of the Habitat Club. RIT has a Sustainability Program which involves a number of the engineering departments. Early this year, the president of RIT asked Katie to come and see him and they talked about ways in which new sustainable building methods could be easily implemented in the homes that the Habitat Club was involved in building. Katie is very enthusiastic about this program and is working with the engineering departments to transfer ideas into future Habitat building projects.

Early this academic year, she was told she had won the Brody Scholarship and Award, which was offered for the first time ever to one Junior and one Senior. Then Katie was chosen for the Outstanding Scholar Award. Anna and I are driving up to RIT on 1 April to attend her reception, award ceremony, and a dinner for this award. More recently, she won the Baldwin Award, which is accompanied by a $3,000 payment upon graduation. The award ceremony for that is on 15 April, so Anna and I will be going back up to RIT for that ceremony. As of this time, Kathryn Anna Anderson has a 4.00 GPA! What an amazing young lady.

Katie will graduate with a combined B.S. degree in two majors: biotechnology and biomedical sciences and with a minor in psychology. She plans to do medical research for one year and then go on to graduate school to earn a Ph.D. She intends to pursue a research career in immunology.