Grayson White

Meet Grayson White

Grayson White is a senior microbiology major from Johnson City who plans to graduate in May and enter medical school.  She enjoys helping prospective ETSU students and their families learn more about the University while giving tours as an Admissions Ambassador, and is also a member of the American Medical Student Association.  In her spare time, she enjoys volleyball, hiking, reading, and spending time with family – not just her own family, but also her “ETSU family” of friends and classmates.

Q: What drew you to ETSU?

A: I came here because it was close to home and I could stay in the area I was familiar with, and, of course, there are great science programs here.  That was a great draw for me, because I’m applying to medical schools.  I wanted a school with a good science program that was also a place where I felt comfortable.  

Q: Tell us about changing your major as the result of work experience.

A: Actually, I was a chemistry major when I started out.  Before I got here, I did some work at Holston Valley Medical Center and did some shadowing.  I thought I wanted to work in pediatrics at the time, and I thought, “You know, I could do that as a nurse practitioner.”  So I switched to the nursing major and took a job as a CNA (certified nursing assistant) in a hospital.  After I started working there more and got some experience, and got to follow some surgeons at the hospital, I kind of took an interest in surgery.  I thought, “Well, if I do that, I have to go back to my original plan and apply to medical schools.”  So I flipped to a health sciences major.  I always wanted to stay in the medical field – it was just about which path I wanted to take and how I wanted to get there.

Q: What led you to become an Admissions Ambassador for ETSU, and what do you most enjoy about it?

A: I became an Admissions Ambassador because I enjoyed my own tours, and I like to talk, so it’s nice to get to meet new people and talk to them.  But also, I know the things I wish someone had told me when I was touring and thinking about where I wanted to go to college.  It’s nice to answer those questions for somebody and pass on that information, like what I wish somebody had told me about housing or about these great classes.  Well, now I am the person who can tell those people about it.

It’s really great, because you get to meet a lot of new people, and especially the further along I get as an upperclassman, I see a lot of students to whom I gave a tour.  One of our other Ambassadors, to whom I gave a bus tour, an open house and an individual tour, told me, “You are so enthusiastic about the school.  You answered all my questions and made me feel comfortable, and you’re part of the reason I came here.”  That’s really special, to know that you made somebody feel so good about ETSU, because of something you told them or something you experienced, that they wanted to come here.

Q: You also serve other students as a tutor for TRIO Programs.  Tell us a bit about that.

A: I started working for TRIO in the spring of 2017.  I got an email from them saying they needed physiology tutors.  I thought that would be a way to make a little extra money, and I do well in that class, plus I like teaching other people.  So I took one student that semester, and it was really cool to see how excited she got and the difference in her confidence with the class as we did our tutoring sessions.  The further we went, she was making A’s on her tests and was excited about class and learning.  I took two new students in the fall.  You kind of go through that same process with each of them, getting to see them get more comfortable.  It’s interesting, because I sat through the classes they’re going through, and it makes me think about things in a different way.  It challenges me to come up with different ways to teach it – to try to understand how they’re thinking about it and how they learn.

Q: Describe the valuable experience you’ve gained as an undergraduate researcher.

A: I started three years ago as a sophomore in the research lab, and Dr. (Allan) Forsman actually handed me my own project.  I’ve worked on studying simulated spaceflight microgravity and radiation on the female reproductive system.  When I presented at the Appalachian Student Research Forum (at ETSU), I hadn’t gone through all the data, so it was really a preliminary run-through to present what I’d found so far.  But I actually completed the project this year, and in October, we took it to Seattle to present at the American Society for Gravitational and Space Research conference.  I gave a 15-minute oral presentation to all these other people who are involved in space research – they study bones, muscles, reproductive systems – everything that has to do with the space environment.  It was a really cool experience to get to go and learn about all this other research, but also to stand up and present my own and have people come up and say, “We’re excited to know what you’re studying.  We want to know what you’ve found out.”  It’s really interesting, and now we’re working on writing up all the data and preparing a paper we’ll try to get published.