Alumni 5Q: Nick Burnett

Q: Can you describe your experience at the Gatton Academy?
A: I was in the first class to go through the whole program, so my experience was likely much different than that of subsequent classes. Academics were important and there was no “hand holding”. Socially, the Academy provided the opportunity to meet a lot of different people, a handful of whom I still keep in touch with. On the whole, there was an enormous amount of freedom afforded to us to enjoy the “college” lifestyle and get out of the program what we were willing to put in.

Q: How have your experiences at the Gatton Academy helped you in your adult life?
A: Attending the Academy has been a tremendous help in my adult life. Academically, it gave me a jump start on post-secondary education, but more than that I learned how to get to know the right people to put myself in the best position for advancement in all of my endeavors. Whether it was finding and meeting with professors that were the most likely to take on research students, or talking to various support staff at the university to score a free cup of coffee every now and then, getting to know the right people was enormously helpful.

Q: Since the Academy, what have you been up to?
A: I went to, and graduated from, University of Louisville with my bachelor’s degree in math. I’m currently a second year medical student at U of L. I’ve spent the last several months working on research projects in surgical oncology and (to toot my own horn a bit) just finished two first author manuscripts regarding treatment and prognosis of liver cancer, and collaborated on two others about post-operative management of pancreatic cancer.

Q: What do you aspire to achieve in the next ten years?
A: I’d just like to finish medical school and residency. Anything beyond that is gravy.

Q: What was your favorite memory from your time at the Gatton Academy?
A: My favorite memory from Gatton was probably the time Bill Clinton came to Bowling Green. A group of us bailed on our physics class to go see him speak. We ended up getting to meet him, shake his hand, and got free Obama ’08 signs that we hung up on statues around campus when the election got closer. And I got my picture in the newspaper so that was pretty neat.

We would like to thank Nick for taking time out of his schedule to be interviewed for this article. Next week, we will be spotlighting Dalton Hubble, Class of 2009, who is a senior at a little school in Massachusetts- MIT.

Academy, Alumni