Krishna Patel

Interview with Krishna Patel

BS in Biological Sciences, concentration in Human Biology
Minor in Forensic Science
Anticipated Graduation: May, 2018
GPA 4.0

Fun facts about Krishna:
She is fluent in the Gujarati language.

What is your proudest accomplishment as an NC State student?
My proudest accomplishment would have to be managing multiple extracurricular responsibilities while maintaining a 4.0 GPA, especially during the last three years of my undergraduate education when I had a job on the side.

What do you love best about your department or major?
I love my major because I enjoy the classes I have to take for it. The life sciences are something I have always had a passion for. Learning about the human body, and learning why things work the way they do, is very interesting to me, because it can be applied to everyday life. Although it is very difficult, the subject matter makes sense because everything has an explanation behind it. I have also met very supportive peers and staff who have helped steer me in the right direction (i.e. for classes to take, who to take them with, and what career path I wanted).

What do you plan to do after graduating from NC State?
I plan to continue working at WakeMed Raleigh Chest Pain Unit as a Nurse Aide and Clinical Secretary and get clinical experience for a graduate program. I would ideally like to do a Dual Degree Program for Physician Assistant and Public Health.

Care to give a shout-out to a faculty or staff member that you would like to recognize?
I would like to give a shout-out to my advisor Bobbie Kelley because she had faith in me throughout my undergraduate career and always offered to recommend me for student awards. She would promptly answer any problems or concerns I had, and gave excellent advice and resource information I could use.

What advice would you give to students at the beginning of their degree program?
Talk to people in your major to figure out what teacher teaches in a manner that is similar to your learning style (i.e. textbook vs. non-textbook). Do not avoid 8:30AM classes or Friday classes just for the sake of avoiding them because some of the best teachers teach at that time and day!

Here are highlights of Krishna’s participation outside of academics:
• Certified Nurse Aid I at Wake Med Chest Pain Unit
• Certified in Basic Life Support
• Served as a medical office receptionist for a family practice in Raleigh.
• Volunteered as Emergency Department Ambassador at Duke Regional Hospital
• Conducted undergraduate research with Dr. Fourches, involving structural curation of compounds and computational cheminformatics analysis of the integrated data
• Presented her research at an Undergraduate Research Symposium
• Worked as Resident Advisor for two years
• Co-president of AED Premedical Honor Society
• Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society inductee