SELESTE
VILLALON
About me
Welcome to my E-portfolio! Throughout my time as an undergraduate student, I have had the honor of participating in honor societies, a community service sorority, scholastic programs, and many research labs. These experiences have helped shape me as a person as well as my future career path. Although this E-portfolio does not encompass all aspects of my undergraduate career, it attempts to summarize some of my reflections and insights based on my within-the-classroom and beyond-the-classroom experiences with respect to research.
My name is Seleste Villalon and I am a Biomedical Engineering major, working towards Graduation with Leadership Distinction in Research.
I'm from Dallas, Texas and moved to South Carolina in 2014 to start a new adventure as an undergraduate at the University of South Carolina!
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Freshman year, I joined Omega Phi Alpha, a national service sorority. This organization has afforded me the opportunity to participate in many community service projects alongside some of the most amazing women at USC. Service projects aim to positively impact the university community, the community-at-large, and the nations of the world. My favorite and probably one of the most influential events that I've participated in through this sorority has been Relay for Life.
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I have also taken advantage of opportunities provided by this sorority to develop my leadership skills by organizing Polar Run, a free 5k designed to collect clothes from the runners and donate them to the local Salvation Army.
Aside from Omega Phi Alpha, I have also had the great honor of being part of Alpha Eta Mu Beta, a national Biomedical Engineering Honor Society that accepts only the top third of the senior engineering class. Another experience that I believe helped my leadership skills was working as an athletic tutor at the Dodie Academic Enrichment Center. I tutored athletes in biology, basic algebra, and upper calculus courses. I would meet with them several times a week to help them keep up with their course work and clarify any concepts that were not clear. Aside from class material, I also helped give them different ways to prioritize assignments as well as work on improving organizational skills.
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Being part of the Capstone Scholar program at USC challenged me to push myself out of my comfort zone, set goals, become more involved in the community, and build relationships with professors and other students.
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I aspire to use the skills I have acquired through my various experiences the past four years as well as the opportunities listed in the Research tab to help the advancement of medicine and biomedical research as a Clinical Research Scientist. The research experiences have been an integral part of shaping my key insights as well as the leadership plan outlined in this E-portfolio. My various research experiences have also shown me the passion I feel towards the amazing things scientists can accomplish to try to better the lives of humanity as a whole, which is why my dream job would be to be a clinical research scientist.
Unless otherwise noted, all images from Seleste Villalon