Issue link: http://tcnj.uberflip.com/i/816864
33 "I want to branch out and experience new things and be more well rounded." For starters, he says, he'd like to organize a political science club on campus and possibly intern with U.S. Senator Robert Menendez. Meanwhile, Aziz is looking forward to his summer job as an unpaid research assistant at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. Ibrahim Aziz got a precocious start on his future. In his first year of high school, he began learning lab skills from scientists at Long Island's Stony Brook Cancer Center in New York, near where he grew up, as part of a program for exceptional science students. Aziz says he'd always had a "deep passion" for research, but when his beloved aunt died of breast cancer, his determination took a personal turn. "That's why I'm so dedicated to research," he says, "to try to find ways to ease cancer or, hopefully, eradicate it one day." While he aspires to medical school and a career as a doctor, Aziz says he hopes to keep one foot in the research lab. "I want both lives," he says. "I want to keep those two things near to me for my entire life, hopefully." Aziz says he'd always had a "deep passion" for research, but when his beloved aunt died of breast cancer, his determination took a personal turn. Aziz kept plenty busy his first year at TCNJ, where he made the dean's list. A biology major, he's a member of the American Medical School Association, the Muslim Student Association, and the campus chapter of Beta Beta Beta, the national biological honor society. His work-study shift as a desk attendant at Phelps and Hausdoeffer Halls keeps him on the job until 2 a.m. He's a volunteer firefighter for the Lawrence Road Fire Company in Lawrence Township, New Jersey. He works in TCNJ's bioinformatics laboratory. And he somehow fits in 25 to 30 hours a week as a student researcher in the Department of Neuroscience and Cell Biology at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, where his research focuses on Alzheimer's disease. It's a packed schedule, yet Aziz says he hopes to get even more involved in campus life over the next three years. IBRAHIM AZIZ BUDDING HEALER ON HYPERDRIVE