Lely graduate’s dual enrollment at FGCU gives her head start into bioengineering career

Editors note: This is the another in a series of profiles highlighting members of the Class of 2014 at area high schools.

Eighteen-year-old Samantha Burns is quick to point out that almost no one calls her that she prefers to go by Sam.

Im an engineer, I like efficiency, she jokes.

Sam, a bioengineering enthusiast, has spent the past two years in a molecular biology lab alongside researchers at Florida Gulf Coast University on an antioxidant gene study. Burns began attending FGCU as a dual-enrollment student starting her junior year at Lely High School.

Its been exciting being able to have a foot in both Lely and a foot in FGCU because Ive been able to represent Lely at a lot of FGCU events, she said.

While not involved in daily life at Lely for the past two years, Sam was able to serve as a co-captain for the schools mock trial and moot court program, leading Lely to place as the top Collier County school this year. She was recently awarded as Best Witness for the Defense and Best Attorney for the Prosecution in the school district.

I really loved Lely, Sam said. You definitely feel like theres this family culture there, and I feel like kids are encouraged to pursue their own paths.

Sharon Murray, the coach for the mock trial team at Lely, called Sam an outstanding member of the team.

She is so articulate when she speaks and projects the knowledge that she has so that people listening to her really pay attention to her. She commands an audience really well, Murray said.

Sam, who moved to Florida from Pennsylvania before the sixth grade, will leave Naples this fall for the University of Pennsylvania. She will be part of the Jerome Fisher Program in Management & Technology to pursue degrees in economics and engineering.

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Lely graduate's dual enrollment at FGCU gives her head start into bioengineering career