UCLA Microbiology: An Insider's Look With Brooklyn Burgess

Brooklyn Burgess is a 20-year-old University of California LA sophomore set to graduate in 2025. She is currently a Microbiology, Immunology, & Molecular Genetics major and plans to declare a minor in global health soon. She hopes to combine her passion for both healthcare and languages in the future to help more people from around the world.

UCLA is currently in the top 10% of schools in the country for studying microbiology and is one of the forefront research universities in the the world. Burgess began her interview by telling me a bit about the atmosphere of her major program there.

“There’s a really friendly environment here. The biology majors are competitive but have a really collaborative environment, especially in the classroom. Everyone takes the same prerequisites for their first two years and specializes in their last two years. I really enjoy the course structure that UCLA uses, we have discussions where we go through worksheets with TAs and study pods of four people where everyone works on the worksheets together. The peer culture is also really good here.”

As of last year, UCLA had an acceptance rate of approximately 8.6%, effectively making the school both exceptionally competitive and the hardest University of California to get into. UCLA is additionally considered one of the few “Public Ivies” in the country, public universities and colleges providing collegiate experiences and academic excellence on par with those of Ivy league schools such as Brown or Princeton.

“Bio prerequisite classes also have group midterms, you take the midterm by yourself and then there’s a second part of the midterm you work on with your study pod. I like the group midterms because it gives a good space to ask questions and share your thoughts,” remarked Burgess.

After briefly discussing her school we circled back to a crucial topic: when did she become interested in science and healthcare? Her answer to this question came almost immediately.

“I was always interested in science and being a doctor,” started Burgess with an air of noticeable enthusiasm, “In the 5th grade, I wanted to be a veterinarian because I wanted to get a dog. I was then interested in becoming an orthodontist and later wanted to be an anesthesiologist. I volunteered at a local hospital’s maternity ward while I was in high school and got to see what being a nurse in healthcare is like. This helped me realize I wasn’t interested in being a doctor but wanted to help people in a broader sense through healthcare. I learned about how you can help communities of people through public and global health because of the COVID pandemic and became especially interested in the topic of public health around then.”

Along with her innate interest for science and helping others through healthcare, Burgess became even more invested in biology due to her AP biology teacher and a particular research project she worked on for the class.

“I really liked my AP biology teacher. In my teacher’s class, we had to do a research project and I really wanted to do something out of the box for it. I came across the CDC website and saw that there was an outbreak of Ecoli on romaine lettuce and it got me thinking, what if I can figure out a safe solution to wash and kill bacteria on lettuce? So I decided to use this idea for my project and tried fermenting different combinations of fruit. I then tried using the fermented fruits as alcohol solutions and experimented to see which solution killed the most bacteria off the lettuce. I really liked this project since it motivated me to try something different compared to things I’d done before.”

While experiences from your childhood or high school may motivate you in your studies as you pursue higher education, entering college can be stressful and you may feel you need to prepare extensively for it. Brooklyn Burgess offered her own advice to any who may be worried about preparing for college:

“College is something no one’s familiar with at first and you can prepare but you still have to just go out and experience your first day and class. It’s tough at first to balance your classes and figure out the best ways to study, but then you get used to it and figure out a flow or routine. My answer is that there’s not really a way to prepare, you just have to go out and experience it. With college, the surprising thing is that you have so much freedom as opposed to high school where everything is incredibly structured. With college, it’s more suggestions and freedom until you realize that you have to make your own structured routine so that you can succeed.” remarked Burgess.

In addition to being a successful college student, Brooklyn Burgess is also a two-time alumna of the full scholarship language exchange programs provided by the U.S. Department of State called the National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y). In the two NSLI-Y exchange programs she took part in, she studied Arabic and Hindi. Burgess wants to join a peace corps mission in the health sector after graduation, preferably a mission in a Hindi or Arabic-speaking area.

Lastly, Burgess shared some of the activities and programs she has participated in and recommends to current highschool students interested in science or simply just expanding their world view.

“I would recommend volunteering at a hospital if you’re interested in the medical field because it gives you a look at what it's like and it also looks good on applications. A program I would recommend applying for is The Experiment Digital, a free virtual summer program that teaches leadership and communication skills.”

If you are interested in learning more about Brooklyn Burgess, you can read more about her here on the Alumni Representatives section of the NSLI-Y website:

https://www.nsliforyouth.org/alumni/representatives/