For DonorsFor Applicants
user profile avatar

Aditi Jagannathan

885

Bold Points

2x

Nominee

1x

Finalist

Bio

My name is Aditi Jagannathan and I am an incoming Sophomore at the University of Southern California majoring in Computational Neuroscience. Though going through my Freshman year of college completely online wasn't the college experience I was expecting, I still found ways to get involved in the school and local community. During the Spring 2021 semester, I began working as an undergraduate student researcher in a Neurobiology lab on-campus that investigates the neural mechanisms behind skill learning through the model organism of songbirds. I am currently involved in designing and assembling electrode jigs for use in electrophysiology as well as immunohistochemistry and spike sorting in MATLAB. I've truly experienced the duality of my Computational Neuroscience major as I use Matlab and cut brains within the same day. Along with research, I am also involved in a number of on-campus organizations. One of these is an organization titled Brain Exercise Initiative. Volunteering bi-weekly over Zoom, I help seniors in the Los Angeles area complete basic math, reading, and trivia worksheets in order to improve synapse function and ward off negative effects of neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's and Dementia. The beneficiaries of my second club, Scholars Leading Scholars, are also seniors....in high school! In the Spring semester, I spent 1 hour weekly going through the entire college application process from making a college list to applying for scholarships (which I'm doing right now) to 3 incoming seniors in the Los Angeles area.

Education

University of Southern California

Bachelor's degree program
2020 - 2024
  • Majors:
    • Neurobiology and Neurosciences

Dublin High

High School
2016 - 2020

Miscellaneous

  • Desired degree level:

  • Graduate schools of interest:

  • Transfer schools of interest:

  • Majors of interest:

  • Not planning to go to medical school
  • Career

    • Dream career field:

      Neuroscience

    • Dream career goals:

      Researcher

    • Sales Associate

      Old Navy
      2017 – 2017

    Sports

    Cross-Country Running

    Varsity
    2016 – Present8 years

    Awards

    • Freshman of the Year, Sophomore of the Year, Anchor Award, NCS President's List

    Track & Field

    Varsity
    2016 – Present8 years

    Research

    • Neurobiology and Neurosciences

      University of Southern California — Undergraduate Student Researcher
      2021 – Present
    • Computational Neuroscience

      Boston University Cognition and Decision Lab — Research Intern
      2019 – 2019

    Arts

    • Dublin High School

      Ceramics
      2019 – 2020

    Public services

    • Volunteering

      Scholars Leading Scholars — College Application Mentor
      2021 – Present
    • Volunteering

      Brain Exercise Initiative — Session Volunteer
      2021 – Present

    Future Interests

    Volunteering

    Philanthropy

    Entrepreneurship

    Bookworm Scholarship
    My freshman English teacher has a bookshelf in the corner of his room. This small wooden bookshelf is home to many people, places, and ideas. From the sand dunes on the planet of Arrakis (Dune), to a disturbing future society characterized by crime and unending violence (Clockwork Orange), to a little school that felt the impact of a big war (A Separate Peace), the books I read pushed me to imagine worlds outside my own. As 2018 came to an end I was hooked on the idea of slowly working my way through the books on this bookshelf. So I did what anyone else in my situation would do: I made myself a New Year's Resolution. I'm going to read 52 books in 2019. That's one book every week. With my weeks consisting of the normal high school routine and two hours of cross country or track practice to boot, some days it's challenging to set aside time to read. Thus far I've made time, whether that's during lunch at school, car rides on weekends, or at night before bed. As I read, I keep a log of lines that catch my eye. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, "Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet". Reading to the tune of my trumpet, I am beginning to make my own Bible. I read because I am a work in progress. The same way these authors have had countless rough drafts, I am constantly reinventing myself using what I've learned about life from these books. Books at their core illustrate the struggles, relationships, and decisions of people just like me. By choosing to find these connections between the characters I read about and myself, I have allowed books to be the instruction manuals that guide my own path in life. I've had to look back at these instruction manuals many times since starting my quote log. In late January when a sudden injury ended my junior year track season before it even began, I was devastated. A whole winter break's worth of conditioning seemed to have gone down the drain, as I was reduced to hobbling on crutches with a bright pink cast on my left leg. It was painful to suddenly be separated from a sport that was so closely intertwined with my identity as a person. That's when one quote in my 13th book, The Alchemist, stood out to me. The main character sells all of his belongings to travel to Egypt in pursuit of an elusive treasure. In Egypt, a con man steals his hard-earned money and he is left to question why he ever left his stable job. But "as he mused about these things, he realized that he had to choose between thinking of himself as the poor victim of a thief and as an adventurer in quest of his treasure" (Coelho 44). My 13th book taught me to be the adventurer in quest of my treasure. I accepted that I couldn't run and instead spent my time in a weight room doing every distance runner's worst nightmare: upper body exercises. Eventually, I did find my elusive treasure: a single pull-up and a single push-up, both of which I had not been able to do before my injury. Moments like those are why I believe that choosing to spend my time reading books despite other demands is the best decision I have made. With every passage that I read, I undergo a small rite of passage that brings me one step closer to my main goal in life, becoming a better version of myself. So by the end of 2019 after all 52 books, you will be able to read my Bible and have a sense of who I am and why.