Today we feature senior Phillip Lakernick, a double major in Chemistry and Computing and Informatics from Cherry Hill, NJ (Camden County).
What opportunities has Rowan been able to give you?
I have been doing research this semester with COVID and researching drugs that’ll help out in some way. It is all electronic for me, I am doing all of the electronic ones. The other ones are hands-on. I have been studying certain drugs like Hesperidin, a series of drugs. I have been putting it in to the computer to see if it works with different proteins in the COVID cell.
What are some interesting things you have learned in your major?
I have learned that organic chemistry is harder than it seems. When I first did chemistry I was like “yeah this stuff is easy.” Then I took organic chemistry then I was like “man this stuff is hard.” With coding, I have learned coding languages are very different from one another. A lot of them have similarities to them but there is always that one specific detail that makes them different from the rest. I have learned a lot of different programming languages at Rowan.
What is your favorite class?
My favorite class was probably Intro to Web Development. So far what I have done with that class is program websites and make them myself. I also get to do whatever I want with them and it has actually been a lot of fun. I have also learned you can mix Java coding to it and make even more stuff happen so it is not just programming in HTML.
How have professors or staff contributed to your time at Rowan?
My professor for Computing and Informatics and Intro to Object Oriented Programming really helped me out. When I first came to Rowan I did not really do that well. She pointed me in the right direction of what I should do instead of my major at the time. Then when I took chemistry that helped me figure out what I wanted to do which was chemistry and computing and informatics.
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Story and photography by: Stephanie Batista, sophomore Music Industry major