Courtney Moore has an outstanding memory. She remembers playing on a loft at age three in Alpha class at Shorecrest 15 years ago, and Mrs. Bassford’s fifth grade science class. It is this sharp mind and attention to detail that will keep her on the pre-med track the next four years at Boston’s Northeastern University Honors Program.
“During my campus visit, I got to see some classes and meet some professors and everybody was so passionate about what they were learning. It reminded me a lot of Shorecrest, actually, because they have a big focus on experiential learning,” she says.
“Shorecrest is so much a part of who I am today, how I think and how I feel,” Courtney continues. “And it’s because of experiences that I’ve had at Shorecrest that I am the way that I am and like certain types of learning over other types of learning. It was in Mr. Collins’ class (seventh grade life science) I really found a love for biology and now I’m going into college as a biochem major. So, it’s kind of thanks to him for introducing that to me and making me love life science. I know he knows that I loved his class. I would study super hard for everything. I had 100% in his class because I loved it so much. Our first real dissections were in that class.”
Northeastern also allows for undergraduate research, a goal Courtney has set for herself. “I want to get involved in research next year. As a freshman it’s an ambitious goal, definitely, but I’m lucky enough to be going to a school that fosters that environment and works with freshmen to help them do that. I love biology and genetics and things like that, so I hope to either just help out a professor on some of their research or come up with an idea for my own.”
Courtney got a taste for that at a 2-week summer program at Boston University a few years ago. “It was my first introduction to what college is like. We took two classes, a morning class and an afternoon class, but other than that we had free time.”
Courtney chose to take classes in Abnormal psychology and infectious diseases. She says, “Those were some really interesting classes and definitely allowed me to further explore my interests in humans and biology. We would do research projects on tuberculosis, influenza, anxiety and all different disorders and present them to the class. It was fun and I made friends there, one of them will be at Northeastern.”