When Betty Kong arrived at Rutgers, she knew she planned to study science, but she wasn’t quite sure where her interests would lead her. As Betty learned, coursework alone isn’t always enough to help an inquisitive and motivated student decide what options to pursue. For Betty, intensive research projects, both at a renowned Rutgers institute and a private, nonprofit lab, helped her to choose a career as a physician/scientist.

Rather than devote herself only to medicine or research, the Rutgers–New Brunswick graduate plans to combine the two by entering a joint M.D.-Ph.D. program in the fall. And her hands-on research experiences, both at Rutgers’ Waksman Institute of Microbiology and at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories on Long Island, a lab with an undergraduate research program, helped to lead her to that decision.

At Rutgers, Betty’s research at the Waksman Institute—45 hours per week during the summer, 12 hours per week during the school year—provided her with amazing resources for an undergraduate, allowing her to conduct experiments in the cutting-edge arena of fertilization. Her intensive summer research gave her the chance to delve deeply into planning experiments, helping her to gain an understanding of what it means to be part of a broader scientific community. “I began to really appreciate the scientific process and scientific thinking,” says Betty.

But Rutgers, for Betty, wasn’t just about scientific research. While maintaining a 4.0 GPA and triple-majoring in chemistry, Chinese, and molecular biology and biochemistry, Betty also found the time to lead tours of the New Brunswick Campus and serve as a liaison between prospective students and the university as a Scarlet Ambassador. Those activities have not only let her share her enthusiasm about the amazing opportunities available at Rutgers, but have helped her to grow as well. “This has been an extremely important experience for me, because through it I learned to become a better speaker, to tell a story, and to really express my Rutgers pride and spirit,” she says. “I’m comfortable enough giving tours anytime now that it’s easy to take for granted how much doing this has really helped me grow as well.”

Another highlight was her participation in Rutgers Study Abroad, traveling to Nanjing, China, for a six-week summer program. “Waking up in a different country, eating their food, walking their roads, visiting their landmarks—no book or movie can substitute for that,” she says. “I learned so much both in the classroom and out, made some of my closest friends, and found a passion for traveling.”