![\"Countdown](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/DEP-018-UComm-Commencement-Graphic-FY22_bookish-300x76.jpg\")
<\/p>\nShe calls him \u201cLoupa,\u201d and he calls her \u201cStar Child.\u201d<\/p>\n
And there isn\u2019t anything in the universe that Genesis Rosario \u201924 (CAHNR) wouldn\u2019t do for Loupa \u2013 her grandpa, whose real name is Louis.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve learned that family is important, regardless of what you have,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Finding family has been a struggle for Rosario for most of her life. She doesn\u2019t have a relationship with her parents. She hasn\u2019t seen her only sibling, a half-sister, in a decade.<\/p>\n
Throughout her childhood, she bounced around from place to place \u2013 mostly around Hartford, sometimes elsewhere. She lived with her grandparents, who are now divorced. Or with cousins. Or with her godmother.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’ve always been kind of displaced,\u201d says Rosario, who now lives again with Loupa in Middletown, commuting to campus during her senior year after spending her first three years of college living in Storrs.<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore I lived with my grandpa, there were just a lot of familial barriers that I went through where it was coming down to, like \u2013 I don’t know if I should pursue college. I don’t really have the support,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut now, I’m at the end of my four years, and I can say that my mindset has changed so much.\u201d<\/p>\n
Illuminating<\/strong><\/p>\n Rosario is many things all at once.<\/p>\n She\u2019s a first-generation college student. An honors student<\/a>. A McNair Scholar<\/a>. A Rowe Scholar<\/a>.<\/p>\n She\u2019s an allied health sciences major, and a health professions peer advisor in UConn\u2019s pre-med office<\/a>.<\/p>\n She\u2019s a member of the UConn Community Services Days<\/a> team, and a hospice volunteer.<\/p>\n She\u2019s proud of her Puerto Rican, Dominican, and Italian heritage.<\/p>\n And she\u2019s part of the LGBTQ community.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn’t really understand my identity coming into college,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m mixed with a whole bunch, but I found out, and I’m proud of my identity.\u201d<\/p>\n A graduate of New Britain High School, the school\u2019s Health Academy was where she started to pursue opportunities in and around health care.<\/p>\n With medicine, not only do you learn to help others, but you get to critically analyze yourself <\/cite><\/p>\n<\/blockquote><\/span><\/p>\n She started working as a lifeguard when she was 15 years old, teaching water safety to children, and took certified nursing assistant courses in high school. Her studies through the Health Academy took her on rotations into health clinics, introduced her to hospice care, and illuminated for her how health care was about a lot more than just treating illnesses.<\/p>\n \u201cWith medicine, not only do you learn to help others,\u201d Rosario says, \u201cbut you get to critically analyze yourself and know where you’re coming from.\u201d<\/p>\n With her personal history, she originally thought about pursuing social work, but instead decided she wanted to be a doctor one day \u2013 a family medicine physician, in particular. In the community where she grew up, people don\u2019t trust doctors, or seek out medical care, or have a whole lot of trust in the health care system.<\/p>\n She wants to help change that.<\/p>\n Her reason for choosing UConn over the other schools she was accepted into was a practical one \u2013 it was close to Loupa, who has lived with various medical conditions for some time.<\/p>\n \u201cThe only family support I had in Connecticut was my grandpa, really, going into college \u2013 I really didn’t want to leave him,\u201d she says. \u201cI definitely didn’t think I could bear that, if something happened to him. Because he has been my anchor throughout this.\u201d<\/p>\n Shifting<\/strong><\/p>\n After Rosario\u2019s junior year, something did happen to Loupa \u2013 he got really sick.<\/p>\n While she loved campus life and working as a residential advisor in the dormitories in Storrs, she gave it up, and went back to live with her grandfather and help take care of him.<\/p>\n The change was hard at first.<\/p>\n But looking back on it now, she says that moving home actually opened doors that she didn\u2019t expect.<\/p>\n She got an internship at Middletown\u2019s Health Department. She took an EMT training course, and started working toward gaining clinical experience. She started studying for the MCAT exam, a requirement for the medical school admission that she hopes to earn one day.<\/p>\n The only family support I had in Connecticut was my grandpa, really, going into college \u2013 I really didn’t want to leave him <\/cite><\/p>\n<\/blockquote><\/span><\/p>\n She poured herself into her honor thesis research, which is focused on post-birth warning signs for post-partum depression in women between the ages of 16 and 24.<\/p>\n She\u2019s working on her graduate school application \u2013 she\u2019s applying to UConn\u2019s masters\u2019 in public health program, hoping to earn an MPH before going on to medical school.<\/p>\n All while bringing Loupa to his medical appointments and helping him manage his health. And he\u2019s gotten better \u2013 his health has improved over the last several months of care.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery day, he gets into the garage around 3:00 p.m., and he watches his projecting movies,\u201d she says, \u201cEvery time, before I go into the house, I go into the garage, say hi to him, and say, \u2018I\u2019m going to go on the computer, type all night, love you!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Iridescent<\/strong><\/p>\n Rosario\u2019s emotions burn as bright as the stars her grandfather nicknamed her after.<\/p>\n \u201cI come from a place where I have learned in clinical settings, in general, to disassociate your emotions from what you’re doing,\u201d she explains. \u201cBehind closed doors, will I cry? Yeah.\u201d<\/p>\n She doesn\u2019t like to focus on the negatives, though, or the challenges she\u2019s had to overcome in life.<\/p>\n That\u2019s one of the reasons that Rosario exemplifies what higher education is all about, according to Micah Heumann, the director of UConn\u2019s Office of Undergraduate Research<\/a> who has become a sort of mentor for Rosario over the last year.<\/p>\n \u201cGenesis comes to UConn ready to explore and engage in as many opportunities as possible, and then looks for ways to give back to the UConn community,\u201d says Heumann. \u201cGenesis spends the time to get to know each person they come into contact with, asks questions, and listens. She continues to overcome so many obstacles, and yet always looks for joy in the world, in others, and herself.\u201d<\/p>\n Once you find, and remember, who you are, it will outweigh all the negatives where you felt like you were alone <\/cite><\/p>\n<\/blockquote><\/span><\/p>\n Rosario says she doesn\u2019t want hers to be a sob story, but she hopes that by sharing herself another student, someone who maybe also felt displaced in life, who might have had an inner-city upbringing, or who also questioned whether they have what it takes to make it at college might find some inspiration.<\/p>\n \u201cLooking back, these experiences helped make me who I am,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \u201cOnce you find, and remember, who you are, it will outweigh all the negatives where you felt like you were alone, where you felt like people were underestimating you and you didn’t know why, where you were feeling frustrated. It will outweigh everything. The equation will cancel out, and you will be able to see yourself, on the top in your own life.\u201d<\/p>\n Like a lot of this year\u2019s graduating class, Rosario didn\u2019t get to have a traditional high school graduation during the pandemic in 2020 \u2013 it was, instead, of the drive-through variety, in a parking lot and held over two days. She couldn\u2019t share it with her closest friends \u2013 their names were too far apart in the alphabet.<\/p>\n This year, when she graduates from UConn, she\u2019ll finally get to experience all the pomp and circumstance she\u2019s been working for \u2013 and Loupa will get to be there to experience it, too.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that day is going to be very iridescent \u2013 it’s going to be very illuminated. Fluorescent,\u201d she says. \u201cHe\u2019s going to see my eyes \u2013 I\u2019m going to be crying a lot, but they\u2019re going to light up 10 times.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Genesis Rosario’s internship with the Middletown Health Department was made possible by a Connecticut Department of Health program administered by Yale School of Public Health<\/a>. The CT Public Health Fellowship Program<\/a> works to cultivate placement opportunities and support students through their internships. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ‘Once you find, and remember, who you are, it will outweigh all the negatives … It will outweigh everything’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":134,"featured_media":212670,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2296,2224,2229,2193,156,99,2235,2306,2458],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2168],"class_list":["post-212423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-allied-health-sciences","category-cahnr","category-commencement","category-hartford-county","category-profile","category-student-life","category-today-homepage","category-uconn-voices","category-undergraduates"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-07 06:31:34","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/134"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212423"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":216416,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212423\/revisions\/216416"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/212670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212423"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=212423"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=212423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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