Columbia Grammar –Alex Baselga
As Albert Einstein once said “I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious”. Like Einstein my curiosity drives me. I always want to explore new things even if they take time and effort. Being curious has helped me achieve many things in live. For example, last year we had to do, a research paper, I decided to do mine on Pulmonary Embolism and Deep Vein Thrombosis. My great-uncle and my great-grandmother had both died from Pulmonary Embolism and my grandfather almost died but at the end he was saved by surgery. When I told my teacher I wanted to do my paper about (PE)Pulmonary Embolism and Deep Vein Thrombosis(DVT), she told me it was too complex and to maybe I should consider an easier topic. I did not want to change the topic, I really wanted to learn more about this disease that runs in my family. Some times I was stucked and frustrated and it was my curiosity that made me go forward and I even went to interview a Doctor at the Massachusetts General Hospital who is a specialist in this disease. I prepared a number of questions and I had the idea to use an iPAD to videotape the conversation so I was able to watch it several times. After all, the effort and time was worth it since I now really understand what Pulmonary Embolism is and what causes and how to treat it more, I received the highest grade in my class. I also learnt that maybe there is a gene in my family that increases our risk. Something that I have to improve is
