On Nov. 14, Cardozo’s Gateway Program students visited Stony Brook University for their 2nd annual Black Men in White Coats Youth Summit to explore the campus, hear from prestigious doctors, and explore future opportunities.
The session lasted an entire school day, with the students leaving at 7:30 a.m. and returning to Cardozo at 2 p.m.
A large array of students, as young as children in 3rd grade to high school seniors attended the seminar. The event featured many figures included in the Stony Brook Education System, such as President Richard L. McCormick and Dean Peter Igarashi. Other medical graduates from different universities were also in attendance, as they answered whatever questions the audience had to ask.
The speakers introduced themselves and explained their backgrounds, giving out small travel bags to the students with a folder filled with information about Stony Brook. After they spoke, the students dispersed into different groups within classrooms to learn about different topics such as different health provisions, undergraduate financial aid, and a BIPOC medical student panel.
These classes went over information that the student group should know to prepare for their college life and explained different majors that they could possibly explore later on in life.
After the students ate a small snack provided by Stony Brook, they received a more physical approach to learning about health. There were stations to apply splints properly, to study the human eye, and most important of all, learning CPR.
Different speakers were around at the time to talk amongst themselves and Gateway students saw this as an opportunity to introduce themselves and ask them questions about their career path and why they chose it.
A member of Gateway, Valeria De Los Santos commented on the trip saying, “The trip was really fun and engaging. I was able to learn about the process in different medical fields in like pphthalmology, pediatrics, gynecology, etc.”
De Los Santos was also able to speak to many of the medical professionals after the second speaking event and during the hands-on activities that they were able to complete.
“I was also able to talk with some of the speakers and ask them questions about their jobs and fields in which helped me for my future career. We also did some fun activities that helped us see how each field does their job and how their equipment works,” she said.
Another Gateway member complimented the many different classes they had during the summit, sharing, “Personally I like the undergraduate financial aid [class] because I could see the different cost of going to Stony Brook and know about difference things that will help me save money during college, but all the classes are very informative and useful for what major I want to decide on.”
Nearing the end of the day, a Stony Brook advisor thanked all of the students for joining the session and eventually were dismissed back to their buses.
Overall, the summit was extremely productive and informative. It offered many different careers to major in and recommended students to someone well-versed in their career that looked just like them. This not only applied to the Gateway students, but to all that came to attend the summit as they might have been influenced by one or more speaker to follow in their career path.
