DaQuan, In His Own Words.
DaQuan graduated from The SEED School of Washington, D.C. in 2013. He is currently a senior at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where he is completing a major in biology and a minor in entrepreneurship. At SEED, he played on the JV and varsity basketball, flag football and track & field teams. He was also the SGA and class president.
Describe your experience at SEED.
At home, I was sheltered—I wasn’t used to being on my own. Coming to SEED was obviously much different. We didn’t talk to our parents as much, especially when we first started. SEED helped me become more independent, which I think was really good for me. It also gave me a lot of opportunities that I wouldn’t have gotten elsewhere, like traveling. For example, the summer before my senior year, I went to New Zealand through the Experiment in International Living program.
DaQuan brushes up on his networking skills at the 2016 SEED Graduate Institute.
What is your major/minor and how did you choose it?
My major is biology and my minor is entrepreneurship. I’m pre-dental and the requirements for dental school align with the biology major, so I figured I needed to know that information anyway. I’m interested in starting my own dental practice eventually, and I also think it’s just useful to have business skills. The entrepreneurship certificate incorporated finance, marketing, and branding, all in one place. I finished it last semester; all the classes were really interesting.
What do you do when you’re not in class—clubs/internships/sports, etc.?
I conduct research at the U.S. Dairy Forage Research Center. We work with cows to see how their diets affect their stomachs. During one experiment, we gave them corn, cornmeal, and different grains to see how that affected their rumen functioning, which is their digestive system.
I also started my own pre-dental organization, Undergraduate Student National Dental Association (USNDA) Madison Chapter. I started that last April, because the dental organization on campus was too big; there weren’t very many shadowing opportunities or volunteer opportunities. A few days a week, our students can shadow dentists at local clinics and offices, and get some dental assistant experience.
What three adjectives best describe you?
Confident, diplomatic, and outgoing.