Honors at Long Beach
Hm, let’s put a pin on that
GO BEACH GO BEACH GO
I’m not sure what Adam and I were expecting when the research we did on toothpaste tablets was accepted for presentation at the Western Regional Honors Council (WRHC) Conference 2024. We had applied in winter quarter when Oliver had presented us with the opportunity to apply. From my experience, an academic conference meant business. Like serious let’s-get-down-to-business-to-defeat-the-Huns kind of business. However, according to my “WRHC Conference 🦀” photo album, the trip started with Director Sutter toppling the Giant Jenga in the conference hotel lobby and ended with “Avatar: The Last Airbender” themed ice cream. And inside this Jenga-Avatar sandwich was one of the most memorable academic and professional highlights of my sophomore year.
It was the day before my 20th birthday in the winter quarter when I received an email from Director Sutter. OMG, a happy birthday email from Director Sutter! Nope. Instead, he had brought up the opportunity to apply for the WRHC Conference 2024. If we were accepted, we would have the chance to present the research Adam Tsao, Raymond Kim and I did in our freshman year for our UHNR 113 Scientific Process class. This research “Effect of Various Toothpaste Tablets on Roughness and Gloss of Resin-based Composite Materials” was done in collaboration with Loma Linda University School of Dentistry and published in “Operative Dentistry” just last month (doi: 10.2341/23-120-L; PMID: 38632854).
As for the actual event, the WRHC Conference 2024 was a two-day event at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) that gave Honors students the opportunity to share their research with other faculty and students from the West Coast. Several weeks after submitting our application to the WRHC, we were ecstatic when we received an acceptance email back. After I received permission from our principal investigator Dr. So Ran Kwon to present our work, I reached out to the two other Tableteers (our iconic team name since we researched toothpaste tablets) Adam and Raymond, to see if they’d be interested in presenting. While Raymond would unfortunately be unable to attend, Adam and I agreed that this could be a very meaningful experience and decided to go.
A whole quarter passed, and spring break finally arrived. Director Sutter kindly picked me and Adam up in Loma Linda, and we carpooled to Long Beach while talking about the city’s history and other fun tidbits. We checked into the conference hotel and joined a walking tour led by Honors students from the host institution of CSULB in a visit to the Aquarium of the Pacific. The aquarium experience was a whole thing in and of itself. I learned that penguins are birds and not mammals. Adam spent at least half an hour trying to get a lorikeet to drink from his syrup cup in the Lorikeet Forest. Esther revealed that she is a fish girl in addition to a horse girl. Director Sutter accidentally got separated from the group and seemingly disappeared. (We later found out that while he looked for us, he managed to explore the entire aquarium by himself. Multiple times.)
After taking an iconic group photo at the end of our visit, we grabbed a late lunch and headed back to the hotel for the Welcome Reception. After the students received a warm welcome from the CSULB and WRHC teams, the newest issue of Scribendi (a nonprofit annual print publication that publishes creative work from undergraduate Honors) was launched, and awards were given to contributing artists and writers. The CSULB Honors Program students who were hosting had also planned activities and events to break the ice and make everyone feel welcome. My favorite part was watching the special fan and hat dances performed by the CSULB Vietnamese Student Association. We then gravitated toward the friendship bracelet-making table. It was here that Esther’s Swiftie powers truly shined: all of us but her had to re-bead our bracelets multiple times from our poor knotting skills, and I must admit that re-beading and re-beading and re-beading was definitely a new flavor of frustration I had not come across before. Of course, no day can end without dessert, so we treated ourselves to the nearby Long Beach Creamery for ice cream, marking a sweet end to Day 1.
Day 2, AKA presentation day, came. As expected, the CSULB campus was huge, and as expected, Adam and I had our little lost-duck moment trying to find our presentation ballroom. Once we were able to settle in, we presented our poster for an hour. Adam and I took turns presenting so that we could walk around and explore the other student research. My personal favorite was research done on Viking language development and migration by a student from the University of Wyoming. During the session, we were also able to connect and network with other Honors students, giving us a new and fresh perspective on what Honors education is like for other schools while also gaining an appreciation for our own at La Sierra. Once our session was over, we attended a few research panels, most notably one on Taylor Swift’s Folklore and Evermore albums. After all the presentations and panels came to an end, the team celebrated the success of this trip with sushi and Avatar ice cream, finally bringing us to a close of this Jenga-Avatar sandwich.
We would like to thank the La Sierra University Honors Program for giving us this chance to connect with other students in meaningful conversations as well as foster intellectual and personal development. This trip reminded us that academia and research are not solo activities that occur inside an isolated vacuum. Rather, they bloom when supported by a community of friends and mentors, which is something that the WRHC Conference 2024 aptly highlighted. If any future La Sierra Honors students are interested in attending this event or others like it, we would be more than happy to talk with you about our experience in detail. GO BEACH!
— Julia Ko, Class of 2026: Biomedical Science/Pre-medicine & co-author Adam Tsao, class of 2026: Biomedical Science/Pre-medicine