Carlos: Earlier this morning, I was actually taking my graduation photos. And at one point, the girl shows me one of the photos of me standing in front of South Building with my tassel and everything. And it kind of hit me. Host: That was Carlos Perez-Heydrich. Smith Center. Carlos: It means a culmination of a lot of things in a way.
Coming to Carolina in the first place was leaving Miami, a place that was always my home, and my family is still there. It was kind of my way to find myself a bit. There was a lot of influence around me in Miami. So you go be a doctor or go into business or do real estate. And I felt that going away and finding myself and finding my own path was really important to me. Host: Carlos is most looking forward to spending time with his family this weekend and showing them around Chapel Hill, his adopted home.
She actually drove up and moved me into my new room this year. My parents dropped me off of course. The leaves are changing. It feels like a home. Earlier this morning, I was actually taking my graduation photos. My goals for each year are definitely taking different focus. From my first year, just what is my support group? Or what am I taking here? What am I research? What I want to pursue at an academic level and contribute to a project.
The friends I made first year are still the best friends I have today. I actually met them in the summer before. We built these great bonds. Carlos: I was definitely apprehensive of becoming part of such a big school at times. And so when I assigned to go to a big state school somewhere else, that was something that I thought about, something that I was deciding. They definitely facilitated a lot those connections. A lot of my family is actually in the medical field.
My grandfather is a surgeon. Two of my aunts are general. Just a lot of medicine around. I was good at biology in high school. And they connected me to research programs across the nation. Really, I was able to turn research in the University of Michigan into working with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in a different institution, and then this last summer, I was working up at Massachusetts General Hospital.
