Brooke Cohen’s Testimonial

I walked through the George R. Brown Convention Center doors, ready for a high-stakes day of doing what I loved. The last time I had been through those doors was six years ago with my robotics team, Team Appreciate, at the World Championships. This time, I was a member of the medical staff for the Houston marathon. I am in my first year of medical school at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, and I would not be here without 2468. 

The impact 2468 has made on my life cannot be overstated. When I entered high school, I was diagnosed with a medical condition that left me unable to do all of my previous extracurriculars. A coworker of my moms, who was a mentor for 2468, suggested I join the robotics team. When I (grudgingly) said I’d give it a try, little did I know that it would be one of the best decisions I would make. 2468 was there for me during some of the most formative years of my life and shaped me as an individual. I am the leader, teacher, researcher, and person I am today because of my experiences on Team Appreciate.

In 2016, I volunteered at my first STEMConnect camp with 2468, teaching underserved students how to build and program basic robots to accomplish a task. Seeing the joy on their faces as they learned a new skill and being able to give them a lightbulb moment when a concept clicked was incredible. I taught at many other STEMConnect camps with the team over my time in the program, and those experiences spurred within me a love of teaching. I refined my teaching skills over the years during summer camps and as the machine shop lead for 2468, teaching new team members how to operate the machinery. I have carried this love of teaching with me since. I became a TA in college for 7/8 semesters, teaching courses such as Physics, Thermodynamics, and Intro to Matlab, and I am now a certified Basic Life Support instructor in medical school, teaching healthcare providers and community members how to perform CPR. 

2468 gave me the support and mentorship to become the leader I am today. The mentors nurtured my fledgling leadership skills, encouraging me to take ownership of my projects, delegate, and teach. They reined me in when I wanted to take on too much, encouraging me to trust my team members. They fostered my confidence, enabling me to speak up when I disagreed with other’s opinions or thought something was wrong. I took these skills with me to college, where I became president of my professional engineering sorority, running an organization of over 60 girls. 

Before 2468, the concept of choosing to pursue an engineering degree was foreign to me. I thought of engineering as some nebulous combination of coding and math with no real-world applications. 2468 taught me that engineering is finding solutions to the problems that matter. Because of this, I saw a way to combine my love for robotics with my love of medicine by obtaining a biomedical engineering degree. I was able to join a research lab directly due to my manufacturing experience on the team. In this lab, I worked on developing a better heart valve replacement for three years, writing a senior thesis on this project. Now, in medical school, I am inspired to engineer solutions to the problems I see in healthcare - and I would have never done this without 2468. 

Greater than all this - 2468 is family. On 2468 I met my best friends, and people who continue to inspire me daily with the good they are achieving in the world. The mentors became like parents, offering me valuable advice not only about engineering but also about life. They cheered me on through every success and comforted me in times of failure. They taught me never to be satisfied, and to constantly pursue my dreams, even when they appear so big that they are unachievable. My biggest dream for the longest time was to be a doctor, and every step I have taken in the path to get to where I am today has been touched by Team Appreciate. I am so incredibly grateful that I had the chance to be a member of this program, and I cannot overemphasize the positive impact 2468 has had on my life.