Dear Future Graduate School,

I am a rising 4th year at the University of Virginia, but I am not just any student; I am a transfer
student from Tidewater Community College. Attending the University of Virginia has broken me down
all while building me up. I first attended community college with the intent of only earning my
associates and nothing further, because I felt as If school was not for me. After matriculating to the
University of Virginia, I was proven otherwise. Getting the opportunity to attend a four-year university
and continue my education helped me pinpoint my interests, weaknesses, skills, and strengths.

I have always been interested in the medical field, but it wasn’t until recently that I finally
decided what I wanted to do. I am an aspiring physician assistant on the pre-med track as a psychology
major and biology minor. Although I have a strong interest in biology, I had a stronger passion for
psychology. I initially chose biology as my major, but when I was presented with the opportunity to take
different and more in-depth psychology classes, I fell in love with it. I kept biology as my minor because
to me, biology serves as a foundation for many other sciences and I felt it was important to be educated
in this subject.

I very much look forward to learning more about cell origin. We always learn so much about the
different parts, processes and various jobs of cells, but never how they came to be. As far as cell origin, I
do not have much knowledge on the topic, but I do know the early environment in which cells were
created had no oxygen and only consisted of mainly nitrogen and carbon dioxide. I also know that
ponds and lakes were likely environments to for starting life. In this course I believe I will do generally
well on everything as long as I study and ask questions when needed, but material I do worry about is
the transport unit because I know the process is lengthy and complicated.

I think being knowledgeable on cell origin overall is important to understand the purpose of
each part of the cell as well as how each function came to be. I believe cell origin could fall under the
objective of learning about basic cell metabolism of all 4 classes of biomolecules: nucleic acids,
carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins, because it could possibly cover how each biomolecule came to be.

Overall, I very much look forward to learning about more in-depth topics on cells and what goes
on behind the scenes in our bodies.

Sincerely,

Bianca Brown