HOPE
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Posted by: Hopkins Insider | 
February 18 2010 | 
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Name: Rebka Tekeste
Year: Class of 2012
Hometown: Silver Spring, MD
Major: Molecular and Cellular Biology
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Undertaking the Hopkins rigor, while at the same time juggling several extracurricular activities, can get quite overwhelming. On top of that, when you take on leadership roles in most of these activities, it gets extra overwhelming. Everything excited me during my first semester of freshman year. I wanted to join every organization that I was introduced to, that I thought was interesting. I ended up joining most of these organizations, some just to fill up my resume and others just because I was interested. I soon learned that overloading on extracurricular activities 
was not the best way to go if I wanted to leave Hopkins with a decent GPA, and if I wanted to stay sane doing it. The following semester I started to prioritize according to my interest; I quit my job and I narrowed my extracurricular activities down to about five, one of which is called Hopkins Organization for Pre-Health Education, also known as HOPE, for which I am the co-fundraising chair.
HOPE is the Hopkins chapter of Minority Association of Pre-Health Students, also known as MAPS, which is a pre-medical component of The Student National Medical Association (SNMA). SNMA is the oldest and largest medical student organization that is dedicated to serving minorities and underserved communities. As a part of SNMA, HOPE’s intent at Hopkins is to provide awareness of the different needs in the Baltimore city area and addressing
The community service chair of HOPE helping the students with the science fair during the Fall Harvest Festival
those needs as much as possible by providing its members opportunities to volunteer. It also provides valuable information to Hopkins undergrad students about the health professional field that may be difficult and maybe even impossible to get elsewhere, all of which is done with the intent of increasing the number of underrepresented minority applicants in the health professional field. That being said, HOPE is not only open and available to the underrepresented minority. We do have a general body consisting of students from both the minority and majority backgrounds.
As part of HOPE’s aim to encourage pre-health students, it provides community service activities, clinic volunteering and tutoring opportunities. We also have different speakers from the health professional field, coming in during almost every general body meetings, informing us about their own personal experiences, giving us firsthand information about the field. Most of the speakers are very friendly and are open to share about anything we want to know. Most give us their contact information and some are even open to have students visit or maybe even shadow them.
Aside from the bi-weekly meetings, HOPE members are provided with the opportunity to network with other pre-health students, health professionals, and recruiting representatives in regional as well as national level. For community service, HOPE provides opportunities to help out as teaching assistants for middle school students at Mount Pleasant Church, as part of the Science is for Everyone (S.I.F.E) program. Last semester, HOPE also participated in the program’s Fall Harvest festival by setting up booths and experiments for a science fair.
The co-president of HOPE also helping with science fair
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make it and I really wish I could have because their keynote speaker this year was Dr. Ben Carson. I truly admire this man!
Besides that, members are also provided with opportunities to volunteer at the Baltimore Rescue Mission Clinic for which they take histories of patients, run tests and take data (like blood pressure and blood sugar count), participate in differential diagnosis and help facilitate treatment by giving out medicine, shots and other cool stuff (real hands-on experience). Even now writing about it, I regret not attending as much of these community service trips as possible because it all sounds so interesting (what pre-med wouldn’t want to participate in diagnosis or give out treatment?) I definitely plan to make some of these trips this semester, hoping that my schedule will allow of course.
Anyway, I’m not going to lie; I initially joined HOPE because, as a pre-med, I thought it would look great on my resume. However, as I started attending the bi-weekly meetings I grew very interested. By the end of the year I decided to run for office in the executive board and I got elected the co-fundraising chair. I had no idea that taking the position of co-fundraising chair was going to require this much work. I am thankful however, for my partner because he takes his responsibility seriously and we work very well together. We had a lot of ideas in the beginning of the semester but most of the plans didn’t come through for one reason or another. However, we did plan an event right before Thanksgiving break, which turned out to be a great success. This annual event, a date auction called Date a Future Doctor, required so
Our first general body meeting last year. The room was packed!
much effort and planning; I was almost ready to give up in the last minute and postpone the event. However, thanks to everyone who was willing to help out, we were able to go through with it, and raise money while having so much fun at the same time.
Aside from the auction we also included a raffle drawing with two possible prizes- a Starbucks gift card (a $15 card I got as a gift! I was happy when I found out that my roommate won it though :-) ) and a lunch with Dean Hicks, assistant dean of admissions at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, neat huh!
Despite my initial fear, we raised so much more than we expected or even hoped for. All the proceeds from the event were donated toward a charity organization in Baltimore known as Health Care for the Homeless which provides a wide variety of services including medical care, social work and case management, addiction treatment, dental care, and access to education and employment and more. We haven’t planned out next major event yet, but whatever we decide to do, it will hopefully be as successful.
Although I sometimes feel like I am in for more than I can handle, I like being a part of HOPE. I have gotten so much information that I probably would not have gotten elsewhere. People get numerous chances to meet and network with those who are in their fields of interest right now and those who are on their way, like med school students. I definitely recommend it if you’re thinking about pursuing a career in health, any type of health, not just medicine (which is why it’s called Hopkins Organization for Pre-Health Education, and not Pre-Med).
