Jade Scott has dreamed of going to pharmacy school for several years. “As a kid, my parents didn’t like to give me medicine when I was sick,” she says. “As I became older, I finally took some and liked how it instantly made me feel better. Since then, I became very excited to understand how it works in the body.” The third-year undergraduate student at The University of Texas at Austin is a nutrition major with a focus in pharmacy.
Scott had some help along her way to becoming a pharmacist. Rachel Raia is a Ph.D. Pharmaceutical Sciences student in the College of Pharmacy’s Health Outcomes & Pharmacy Practices division. Raia has mentored Scott on her path to pharmacy. Through her hard work, dedication, and professional guidance, Scott recently earned an Intellectual Entrepreneurship Kuhn Award. Each student receives a $1,000 stipend made possible by Michael and Alice Kuhn.
The Intellectual Entrepreneurship (IE) Pre-Graduate Internship Program, housed within the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement and the Moody College of Communication, has awarded 20 students with IE Kuhn Awards for the fall 2017 semester. The award supports first-generation and/or economically-disadvantaged college students in their academic pursuits and further enriches their pre-graduate school internship experience (e.g., traveling to conferences, potential graduate school visits, research endeavors, supplies, books etc.). The DDCE provides a matching stipend to the interns’ graduate student mentors.
Scott says the IE Kuhn Award will provide “the resources to understand pharmacy school and the aspects of it.” At the end of the opportunity, she hopes “to become even more excited about the possibility of pursuing a career as a pharmacist.”