Ted Gomez, ENG’08, W’08

Bioengineering and health care management

From community service trips to medical research, Ted Gomez has done a little bit of just about everything during his time at Penn.

A student in the highly selective Jerome Fisher Program in Management and Technology, Ted has enjoyed a cutting-edge education. “I honestly think the M&T Program epitomizes interdisciplinary learning at Penn,” Ted says. As he eyes the possibility of medical school, he says the program—through which he will earn degrees in both bioengineering and health care management—has been a perfect fit.

Outside of the classroom, Ted has enjoyed a range of worthwhile experiences. A particularly important one was a post-Katrina community service trip to New Orleans with CommuniTech, a student group that donates computers and provides free tech support in disadvantaged communities. Ted and the other CommuniTech members helped small businesses recover after the storm with free computers and software training. “The trip really gave meaning to a lot of the things I’ve learned here,” he says, “both in terms of using technology and in terms of applying my Wharton education.”

Ted has also had enriching research opportunities as an undergraduate. As one of a select group of students in the University Scholars Program, part of the Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships, Ted was connected with a senior faculty research mentor who shared his academic interests. In addition, Ted has worked in a lab at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia on infant epilepsy research.

And on top of all that, Ted has made great friends along the way, and he says that one of the best aspects of his Penn experience has been the chance to learn from them. “One of us is from, as he says, Middle-of-Nowhere, Pennsylvania, another one is a Muslim student from North Carolina, another is from Kansas, and I’m the city boy from LA. So you can imagine that just talking to each other about our differences—in everything from politics to sports—makes for interesting situations,” says Ted with a smile.

Though his Penn experience has been hugely formative, Ted says he would not be here without generous financial assistance. “Penn gave me the best financial offer,” he says. “And all the support I’ve received gave me the opportunity to be part of a university that I would otherwise be unable to afford. To think that I came from where I came from, where my family came from, and I was able to attend a school like Penn, it’s simply amazing.”

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