Peter Bio

Hello Everyone!

So to follow in Bens footsteps....

My name is Peter Cheney and I am 22 years old (soon to be 23). I lived for 8 years in Albuquerque, NM before moving to Buffalo with my family in 1995. I have spent many a summer and/or winter in either Albuquerque, Buffalo, or Boston visiting family. I am recieving a B.S. in Chemistry with a certificate in the Foundations of Medicine, and a B.A. in French (possibly with an African Studies Certificate) from the University of Pittsburgh. I originally applied to the Roswell Masters Degree Program because of its reputation as a great cancer research hospital, my previous research experience there in the Repasky lab during high school, and its affiliations with UB and its classes/facilities. Unlike the others in this program so far, I have not had the chance to experience the classes at Roswell firsthand since I just started this semester, but I do not believe I will be disappointed.

I have had a very interesting undergraduate experience. I have had opportunities to travel to South America as a freshman and China as a Senior on singing tours with my University Choir. I have also spent 2 months in Nantes, France followed by 5 months in Paris, France to finish my Undergraduate Degrees (Thats why I joined the CanSYS program in the Spring).

When I was applying for Masters programs I tried to find something that would fit both my love of science and my love of foreign language and culture, but without success. I eventually settled on pursuing science. After applying to Roswell Park/UB, Dr. Michalek brought this program to my attention, as it was so new that there was no information online to be found. Needless to say I could not have designed something more suited to my interests, and immediately said yes.


My Expectations from this Program:

Since I am part of the first round of students to take part in this exciting new program, I have various expectations. I expect there to be some kinks to be worked out, in terms of arrival timing, class correlation between the States and Europe, various other logistical items, etc. I also expect very high calibar work from both myself and my fellow classmates while we are abroad. That being said I also want to keep in mind that the schooling system in Europe is different and things that we have covered in the States might not have been covered here, and vice-versa. I hope to learn many new skills and new insight into old skills that can be applied to our classes and labwork back in the States. Outside of lab and Uni classes, I hope to continue to perfect my French, and to become conversationally able in German. I hope to learn more about the linguistical background here in Luxembourg in general, as I am very interested by language evolution.

Today was our first day of classes, so I cant detail what I like or dislike about the classes, but I promise to detail that as the program progresses. I also promise to detail steps that I personally took before and since arriving here, to improve the experience of future students to be. I think this program is going to be an amazing opportunity, and well worth any "tweeking" that might be part of our experience.

Let me know what you'd like to know more about, I promise to try to be as indepth as I can be!

@+
Peter