Hello everyone! The end of summer is coming near, and I just finished my Global Guardians Virology program at USF! It was very interesting and I highly recommend it. At the camp, we learned a lot about infectious diseases and pandemics such as Ebola, HIV, malaria, dengue and more! The focus of this camp was the research and lab part of the medical field! I never really gave much thought on the research side of medicine but being able to take part in this program was really eye opening. I’m not personally interested in this field, but it was still a very good and interesting experience. Another focus of this camp was public health, however, which I am very interested in. They took us on multiple tours in different laboratories and institutions like the Florida Department of Health and USF research institute, as well as even allowing us to look at some samples of viruses and look at the cells in sliced up tonsils while walking through the research and thinking process. We had many intriguing lectures on multiple viruses by professors who told us about their research. One of the speakers was Dr. Gallo! He discovered the human retrovirus and that HIV is the cause of AIDS. As a surprise to me, my favorite part of this program was the people. All of the guest speakers and scientists in the lab were very eager to share their work and fuel everyone’s interests. They even gave out their emails so the students could contact them for possible internships and research opportunities in the future!  All of my peers were very bright and amazing to work with. During one team activity, we had to try to run a hospital simulation with patients affected by infections and viruses, work out how to keep everyone safe, and ensure they get proper treatment. It was honestly very challenging, but everyone had so much fun. We also were tasked with a debate on whether medical shows are beneficial or overdramatize everything for profit etc… It was my first time having a debate, but I really enjoyed it! Listening to everyone’s points was very interesting and made it more enjoyable! I made two really awesome friends there which made it way more awesome :] I highly recommend this camp! I learned a lot about virology and epidemiology. Have a good summer everyone!