My name is Juliana Baez and I am a second year Forensic Science major at UCF. I graduated from Palmetto Ridge High School in Naples, Florida in 2022. My favorite class at UCF now is Fundamentals of Chemistry I. I’ve loved chemistry since my sophomore year of high school and that hasn’t changed now in college, which is a main reason I chose to go into the forensic science career as a lot of chemistry is involved. This leads to my next point of my favorite professor being Dr. Lapeyrouse, the Fundamentals of Chemistry I instructor. You can tell she has a genuine passion for teaching chemistry and she is extremely well at explaining everything. Even if you don’t understand something during the lectures, she has her own YouTube channel highlighting important concepts and formulas, so this also adds to why her class is my favorite. As for the GEMS program, I decided to get involved and become a mentor because it truly helped me when I was once a lost freshman that left home for the first time. The same way my mentor guided me through learning the ropes of surviving college, I want to be that person to someone else, even a whole group of girls. I expect the program to help me grow as a person and further develop my leadership skills as I take a small group of girls under my wing through their first two semesters here at UCF. In my free time, I love to play video games, work on my Mustang, and hang out with my friends.