Wake Forest Magazine December 2002 - Past Issues - Wake Forest ...

Melissa Malkush shoreham, n.y.
The few minutes Melissa (Missy) Malkush spent talking with
Professor of Biology Pete Weigl on her campus visit were
enough to convince her that she had found her college
home. She wanted to come south for college and had visited
several other schools when she and her parents stopped at
Wake Forest. She’s wanted to be a doctor since studying
colonial medical practices in fourth grade, so she dropped
by the biology department to talk with someone about the
pre-med curriculum.
“I was looking for a school where I would receive more
(personal) attention,” she said. “When we visited here, Dr.
Weigl took us into his office and starting drawing diagrams
on the board of everything I could take. I felt really cared
about. I didn’t have the same reaction at other places. That
made up my mind.”
That feeling was reaffirmed her
first week of classes when she was
studying outside the Benson
University Center and her Spanish
professor stopped by to chat. “He’s a
new professor and he wanted to
know how he was doing. He said that
if we don’t do well, than he feels
responsible,” she said. “I want my
teachers to get to know me, not just
my work. They may help me learn by putting red marks on
my papers and grades on my tests, but they can help me
more if they work with me directly.”
Malkush has always been interested in photography and
has compiled a portfolio of her work–including photographs
from Ground Zero in New York–that was strong
favorite class >
biggest adjustment >
best part of college >
probable major >
in five years? >
I expect Wake Forest to prepare me for
the transition from living with ‘mommy
and daddy’ to being on my own.
Between last month (August) and when
I graduate in four years, a lot will have
to happen to make that possible.
biology
getting enough sleep
hallmates
undecided, art minor
medical school
enough to land her a Presidential Scholarship, the first
awarded in photography. Her father is a media technology
teacher and internship coordinator at a high school, and
her mother is a music teacher and orchestra leader at a junior
high school. She has an older brother who recently
transferred from the Merchant Marine Academy to the State
University of New York at Stony Brook.
She spent last summer working in a psychology lab at
SUNY – Stony Brook, excited to be using some of what she’d
learned in her high school biology and chemistry classes.
That experience reflected her new
outlook on education: that it wasn’t
about getting good grades, but
about learning. One day, after she’s
established her medical practice,
she’d like to be able to take a month
off every year to travel to South
America to provide medical care to
people in remote villages.
Wake Forest is smaller than she
first thought, but that hasn’t curbed
her enthusiasm. She’s already joined Quest, a Christian
leadership group, and is volunteering at a local middle
school twice a week. She’s looking forward to continuing to
develop her skills as a photographer and exploring other
media in the art department. And she’s one of the few freshmen
in the Harbinger Corps, the student tour guides. “I see
the tour groups walking around the Quad, and I want to say
‘come here’ and tell them how great it is here.”
December 2002 17