Gemstone

Currently, I'm a freshman in the Gemstone program at the University of Maryland. Part of the Honors College, Gemstone is a four year group multidisciplinary research program. Whenever you think of research, you might think of biology and engineering, but there are Gemstone teams with pretty cool non-science related projects as well. Although a four year program sounds like a long time, when you break it down, it goes by really quickly! Freshman year is spent getting to know your cohort and others in Gemstone. However by the end of freshman year, everyone is placed in a team. This semester in GEMS102, we're in the stage of choosing and being placed in teams. So, how do these teams form? In the beginning of the semester, people proposed their project ideas in the form of a project proposal. From the beginning of last semester, I knew that in order for there to be teams, people would have to propose their ideas. However, I personally didn't have any cool project ideas and was not planning on proposing a project at all. And then...I read a faculty proposed project and was interested in one particular project a week before the project proposals were due. Why didn't I get interested in a project weeks before? I don't know... Since one week was a short amount of time to propose a project, I was struggling with the decision to propose the project or not. If I chose not to propose the project, I would not have had anything major due that week. If I did choose to propose the project, I would have to do a whole literature review and find out what this project was even about. Although I felt that God wanted me to propose this project, in the beginning of the week, this seemed impossible. Within less than a week, my co-authors and I had to write the background, literature review, background, cite sources, and make a commercial. Then on Monday, I found out three people I was planning to write the project proposal backed out (with legitimate reasons). Again, I was caught in a conflict and was asking God, "Should I propose the project or should I not?" However, my one close friend from high school agreed to propose the project with me and helped me sooo much! Thank God for sending my friend. I don't know what I would have done otherwise (I probably wouldn't have proposed the project).

And then our project proposal were approved by the Gemstone heads! Around forty projects were proposed and approved in the beginning of the semester. By the end of the semester, there will only be twelve projects left. The first round of voting was last Thursday and thank God our project went through (even though I forgot to promote the project until the day before). Although I don't know if the project will go through to the end, I know that God is in control. I know that God has the best plans for my life. Even when things don't work out the way I plan it, I know it's because He has even better plans for my life. For example, I applied to be a GEMS100 Section Leader and didn't make it, but I'm going to trust God that it's the best for me. I'm still learning and struggling to trust God in different aspects of my life. However, when I do entrust my life to Him, there truly is peace and joy that passes all understanding.

Here's our facebook page for team IMPACT. (: