Alumni Profiles

B.S., double major — Chemistry and Biology, 2009

Doctoral student, University of Virginia, Biological Chemistry

Charlottesville, V.A.

“I’m not gonna lie to you,” says Jennifer Abelin when questioned about her phenomenal successes at Guilford College, “It’s not me. The one who took all the classes, played sports, got into prestigious graduate schools — that’s not me. It’s the Guilford College me, the one who lucked out by going to Guilford.”

She credits her professors, and especially her advisor, with creating the Jenn of today: “She held my hand and invested so much time in me — she shaped me. The ‘me’ of today is truly Guilford’s vision of what someone can be. I got an amazing internship, I ‘walked on’ the lacrosse team … I’ve just been downright lucky.”

Jennifer Abelin played lacrosse and ran cross-country for Guilford, and she amassed outstanding records, awards and other recognition for her athletic achievements. She did all of it while tackling a very tough double-science major and making dean’s list grades.

Having declined offers to pursue a doctorate at Wake Forest, Emory University, the University of Pittsburgh and Cornell University, Jenn heads to Charlottesville, Va., in the fall, and she reflects somewhat wistfully on her times at Guilford College.

Jenn says that when she was in high school in Connecticut, she looked at other colleges before she found Guilford: “The other schools, wow — I thought they were great until I visited. Then I knew right away, NO! This is not right for me.” And Guilford? “I knew that the learning style at Guilford College was a right one for me, and as soon as I set foot on the Guilford campus, I knew without a doubt that it was the place where I belonged.”
During her visit, Jenn went to meet the lacrosse coach. “I introduced myself and told him that I played. He agreed to let me ‘walk’ onto the team, and I played four years.”

She certainly did. Jenn earned First Team All-Old Dominion Athletic Conference recognition, and she ranks second all-time with 217 ground balls. She captured the Quaker Club’s 2008-09 Ideal Student-Athlete Award, and she earned the Nereus C. English ’26 Award, the school's highest athletic honor. She graduated as a three-time All-ODAC selection and a member of the 2007-08 IWLCA Division III Academic Honor Roll. Not bad for a walk-on player.

Because she was majoring in two sciences, she often had labs scheduled during her teams’ regular practice time. How did she handle that? “I would get the practice schedule a week in advance, and then I’d get up early in the mornings and do the whole practice routines on my own, before classes began.”

She learned to adapt, for the athletic field as well as in life. “I came from a mainly white town in Connecticut, but Guilford has people from all over the world,” she says. “You learn to understand other people’s perspectives. Guilford College teaches you that you need to think and to be informed on a global level — you need to learn the politics of the globe to be useful in life.”

Jenn plans to carry that perspective into her graduate work and beyond: “I want to do research that has some kind of medical application, that gives you the promise of helping people. That’s one of the main reasons I’m going for the Ph.D. at UVA — the program there is just excellent.”

Jenn served as an intern one summer at the University of Kentucky. “My First-Year-Experience teacher at Guilford College became my advisor, too. And the stories about medicine that she told me lit fires under me, convincing me to take chemistry the summer after my freshman year. Then the summer after my junior year, I was awarded a Research Undergraduate Experience internship at the U. of Kentucky. For 12 weeks we did laboratory research dealing with the study of Alzheimer’s disease.”

A mentor in Kentucky wrote letters to help Jenn get into the right graduate schools, and that fit perfectly with help from professors at Guilford. “My Guilford College advisor was phenomenal when it was time for me to approach graduate schools,” Jenn says. “She helped me decide which grad schools to apply to, what letters to get, when to do it all by. She really shaped the process beautifully.”

Jenn says that advisor has a Christmas party for chemistry students, as well as a fall get-to-know-you party for all new chemistry students. “We have her cell phone number — she tells her students to call if we need her. And once when I was running late with a paper that was due, another professor said I could drop the paper off at her house by midnight. The professors here are like that. They really extend themselves, investing completely in our success.”

Lifelong relationships with the faculty members? “Oh, yes. I’m done now, but tonight a group of us are going to a prof’s house for dinner.”

She says that the lacrosse team members also are “always there for you. We back each other up constantly, and that is such a wonderful feeling. Some of my team members even went to see me defend my senior thesis. Even though they had no clue what I was talking about,” she says with a laugh, “they all said, ‘Great job!’ afterwards.”

Jenn adds these pieces of advice: “If you want to hide in college, Guilford is not the place for you. Also, you have to be open to the fact that the people at Guilford might be different from those you grew up with — the students are different, the profs are different. This teaching style is very personal. Be prepared to ask for help if you need it, and be ready to open your mind to new worlds.”