University medical physics Ph.D student Lydia Jagetic joined her passion for research, teaching and travel over the summer in Ensenada, Mexico.
She almost skimmed past the opportunity in an ad called “Outreach in Mexico” in a graduate student newsletter.
“It was the very last thing, so I almost completely overlooked it,” Jagetic said. “It was the day the application was due, but it all worked out.”
“I’ve always been really interested in outreach and traveling and other cultures and things like that, so it was a perfect combination of everything that I love,” she said. “Once it caught my eye, I was sold on it.”
Jagetic volunteered to teach a week-long intensive course for high school and college students in Mexico on the uses of radiation in medicine. The course was organized by Clubes de Ciencia, a non-profit organization that aims to inspire and mentor the future generation of scientists and innovators in Mexico.
“It was an amazing experience, absolutely incredible,” Jagetic said.
The majority of her students spoke English fluently, except for one. Jagetic said she was worried about him understanding the lessons.
“But he stuck it out the whole week. We had a lot of walking from place to place and he was always the one next to me trying to ask me questions, struggling through broken English,” Jagetic said.
She said the boy was constantly there and engaged. The other class members were always there to help translate if there was something he really didn’t understand.
He ended up earning the highest score on the final exit exam.
“It was really incredible. I couldn’t believe it,” she said.
“The students were so inspiring. It was a really wide range of ages, backgrounds and base knowledge levels, so I was nervous going into it, but all of them were so excited to learn and dedicated,” Jagetic said.
The course consisted of four days. Half of each day was spent on lectures and the other half working on labs that correlated to what was learned in the classroom. On the last day, students had presentations with real-world scenarios.
She said her favorite moment of the trip happened after the final presentations, taking pictures and saying goodbye to the students and families.
The parents and sister of one of her students came up and gave her a hug and kiss on the cheek. The sister translated for her parents to Jagetic how her sister would come home everyday excited about what she had learned.
“It was nice to hear that it wasn’t just them coming grudgingly. They went home excited for them to be learning things and their families saw that,” Jagetic said.
Jagetic wants to continue teaching abroad and experiencing new cultures in third world countries as she completes her Ph.D.
Jagetic works in the lab of Wayne Newhauser in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. After receiving her Master’s degree in medical physics in 2013, she spent an academic year in Croatia as a Fulbright Fellow, researching radiotherapy in developing countries.
LSU PhD student traveled abroad to teach radiation in Mexico
By Allison Bruhl | @albruhl__
October 26, 2016
More to Discover