My name is Kailey Koontz and I am a Biomedical Science major. This will be my second year at UCF. In 2013, I graduated from Spruce Creek High School in Daytona Beach, Florida. Definitely one of my favorite classes at UCF was SLS, Overview of Selected Medical Careers. It's a course that my major requires and it is super interesting. They teach you everything you need to know about medical school. Also a lot of different medical professionals come in and talk about their jobs and show really cool pictures. It's a class I highly recommend if you are interested in any sort of medical career. One of my favorite teachers was Matt Russo. He was my TA for both Pre‐Calculus and Calculus I. He was always so relaxed and really helped explain everything in a way that I understood. I absolutely love the EXCEL program and would recommend it to any STEM major. Not only do you have a lot of support from all the faculty members, but you also meet some of the most awesome people. In fact, I've met some of my closest friends in EXCEL and two were in my mentor group. In my free time, when I'm not studying, I like to read, sleep, and hang out with my friends. Words of advice for the GEMS freshman students: “”Take the speech “”for every one credit hour you take, spend two to three hours studying”” seriously. You will realize just how easy it is for your grades to start slipping if you don't study.””