Fellow Feature: Megan Sousa
On transitioning majors, living abroad, and shoving good into the world
Megan is a current Fung Fellow. She has studied in Taiwan and the Netherlands, as well as worked as a teacher in Italy. We were able to talk with Megan about her time abroad, her desire to enter the medical field, and some of the current projects she’s working on.
On what you need to know about her
“My name is Megan Sousa and this is my first semester as a pre-med physics transfer student at UC Berkeley. Before Cal, I lived abroad for three years until I moved back to California and attended Butte College in Oroville. I am passionate about learning, I love science and writing, and in my limited free time I crochet, run and learn new languages. I also practice karate and I hope to join a new dojo here in Berkeley!
On why she became a Fung Fellow
I became a Fung Fellow because I want to be a part of the solution. I want to dedicate my life to addressing the bigger obstacles facing our world, especially in health and wellness, and becoming a Fung Fellow is a direct opportunity to begin. As a transfer student, I also thought it would be a unique way to meet people I share this passion with who study subjects outside of my own.
“I want to dedicate my life to addressing the bigger obstacles facing our world, especially in health and wellness, and becoming a Fung Fellow is a direct opportunity to begin.”
On switching majors
I originally decided to study physics because I find it incredibly fascinating and its difficulty makes the little moments of success feel that much sweeter. That being said, I am actually currently in transition to a new major: linguistics. My time in the physics department has been incredible, but with the knowledge that I have just these two years to study whatever inspires me most before going to medical school, I have realized that physics as a subject feels too disconnected from people for me.
With my background in foreign language learning, English instruction, and creative writing I think that linguistics would be a major in which I could grow even more. I hope that my time at UC Berkeley can help me become someone worthy of a career in patient care.
On studying, working, and living abroad
I grew up out of my comfort zone, living in Taiwan, Italy, and the Netherlands over the span of three years starting when I was seventeen. I moved to Taiwan to spend my senior year of high school there through Rotary Youth Exchange. I had the opportunity to attend a Taiwanese high school and learn mandarin while living with three different families. It was a huge initial culture shock, but I was surprised with how quickly I was able to adapt and learn to love the differences in the day-to-day life that I experienced there in comparison to my life in California.
I met a lot of other really wonderful people in Taiwan that were there through the same program and this opened the door for me to be able to move to Italy the following year. I lived in a small city in Piedmont called Cuneo where I worked as an English instructor in a middle school and an elementary school. I also worked privately and held around 10 to 15 sessions throughout the city with students ranging in age from eight to 70! Italy still feels like a second home to me, and in a perfect future, it’s where I end up permanently.
After a year in Italy, I felt like it was time that I continued my own education, so I moved to the north of the Netherlands to attend a Dutch university and study International Communications. I loved living in the Netherlands, especially in the city I ended up in, Groningen, which was incredibly student-centric and safe. I had the opportunity to work on teams made up of students from all over the world as we tackled public relations and marketing for actual Dutch clients. It was an experience I wouldn’t trade for anything, but it also taught me that this wasn’t a field I could spend any extended amount of time in. The following year I moved back to California to begin community college and my continue my infinite journey towards medical school.
I think the years I spent abroad were the best and the worst years of my life and I would be a completely different person without having lived through them. The biggest things that I learned in terms of my personal worldview would be patience, flexibility and openness. There are many things that set me apart everyone else while living in these countries, but there were so many more things that I had in common with people, especially with regards to the important things.
There are so many more good people in the world than it can seem sometimes, and we are all just trying to find ways to make each day count.
On her current projects
I am working on a couple of things right now that I am really excited for. I am currently working in the Hallatschek biophysics lab on a project concerning evolution and different strains of E. coli. I really love my work in this lab because I get to do the wet lab biology, the microscopy, and write code to process the image data; it’s nice seeing the tasks from start to finish. I am also halfway through crocheting my first full-size blanket, and I’m three-quarters of the way through a fantastic book series!
As a Fung Fellow, I had the chance to work on tackling the issue of social isolation in college students this past semester. My team took an intergenerational approach and designed a Berkeley program that would partner incoming students, both freshman and transfer, with local retirees to trade skills and stories.
What I love about being a Fung Fellow is that we’re trying to answer questions that really matter, and affect a lot of people, it feels like we’re doing important work in response to the important questions that need asking and answering.
On her hope for making an impact in the future
I have wanted to be a surgeon since I was eight years old. My mom is a cytologist in a pathology lab and my dad is a bicycle mechanic, sometimes it feels like the perfect combination of the two. Going into medicine has always felt like the most active way that I can make the world around me better, especially with the constant passion I have felt for it. I want to do as much good as I can for as long as I can.
And while it would be amazing to impact a huge number of people, I can also appreciate the significance of easing the burden of just a few in a more personal way.
I have been across the world and it has shown me that I want to be a force of good, I want to aggressively shove some good into the world!”
Connect with Megan // As told to Lauren Leung
Fellow Features is a series dedicated to showcasing the Fung Fellowship community and learning more about their lives and their stories. If you’re interested in being featured, email funginstitute@berkeley.edu!
Learn more about the Fung Fellowship at fungfellows.berkeley.edu.
