{"id":4948,"date":"2020-04-20T11:54:41","date_gmt":"2020-04-20T18:54:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/?p=4948"},"modified":"2022-10-04T21:59:07","modified_gmt":"2022-10-05T04:59:07","slug":"an-unconventional-path-to-uncommon-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/2020\/04\/20\/an-unconventional-path-to-uncommon-success\/","title":{"rendered":"An Unconventional Path to Uncommon Success – HC Student Spotlight"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There was nothing conventional about Dylan Gregory\u2019s path to the Oregon State University Honors College. There\u2019s been nothing conventional about his research accomplishments since he arrived, either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

A first-generation and\nlow-income student, Dylan initially planned to study visual communications,\nenrolling in the Herron School of Art and Design in Indianapolis, Indiana after\nhigh school. Financial difficulties, however, forced him to drop out and move\nback home. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPretty quickly I realized\nthat college was expensive, and being the first of my family to go to college,\nnobody really could advise me on how to navigate it, financially or\nacademically,\u201d he recalls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dylan took some time to\nregroup, living with his mom in Portland, working a job while figuring out his\nnext steps in life. \u201cTo be honest, after I dropped out of art school, I felt\nlike a failure,\u201d he says. \u201cAfter taking steps to better myself, I realized\ngoing back to school was the most important thing I could do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2016, he enrolled in\nPortland Community College as an environmental science major. There, he met a\nprofessor who inspired him to pursue research and biology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHer biggest piece of\nadvice to me was to get as much research and internship experience as I could,\u201d\nDylan says. \u201cSo I made it a pretty strong point to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That commitment is what\neventually drew him to Oregon State and the Honors College: the multitude of\namazing opportunities for research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, as a biology major with an option in genetics still a year and a half away from his anticipated graduation in spring 2021, he already has had several major research experiences, including work at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and a summer spent doing research at the University of California, San Diego. He is currently working with Dr. Virginia Weis, the chair of the Oregon State Department of Integrative Biology, studying the symbiotic-associated innate immunity genes of the sea anemone Exaiptasia pallida<\/em>, research that will form the basis of his honors thesis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This summer, with support from an Honors College Experience Scholarship, Dylan plans to attend an International Coral Reef Society conference in Bremen, Germany. There, he would have the opportunity to meet some of the world\u2019s leading coral reef researchers and learn about the newest studies, skills, and methods in the field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The path from Indianapolis\nto Corvallis has been a winding one, but Dylan is confident that he is just\ngetting started.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI’ve found so many opportunities to meet other passionate people, experience amazing places and work on some amazing projects that make a real impact in the world,\u201d Dylan says. \u201cI’m excited to spend the next year and a half having more of these experiences with OSU.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Lucas Yao, Student Writer<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There was nothing conventional about Dylan Gregory\u2019s path to the Oregon State University Honors College. There\u2019s been nothing conventional about his research accomplishments since he arrived, either. A first-generation and low-income student, Dylan initially planned to study visual communications, enrolling in the Herron School of Art and Design in Indianapolis, Indiana after high school. Financial […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9506,"featured_media":7438,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1205,1395124,1306],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories","category-hc-student-spotlights","category-student"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9506"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4948"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7942,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4948\/revisions\/7942"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}