NATCHEZ — Chinwe Udemgba is not sure how the future will work, or how the world works, but a science summer program helped her figure both out.

Udemgba spent part of June participating in Alcorn’s annual AgDiscovery summer program.

Udemgba is a sophomore at Natchez High School who was indecisive about what she wanted to do when she gets older.

“I wanted to be a policeman, pediatrician, obstetrician, even a spy,” Udemgba said. “I was a flip flopper.”

Udemgba started to picture her future more clearly after she learned about the HIV and AIDS epidemic, and she was upset with the amount of human suffering. She decided she wanted to pursue the study of disease, pathology to help cure the world’s problems.

“It seems so nice to work with diseases,” Udemgba said. “I want to find a cure and make the world better.”

Science is Udemgba’s favorite subject in school, and it just seemed to be a good fit.

She enrolled in AgDiscovery, which is a program focused on teaching middle school students about animal science.

Udemgba medicated bucking horses, shaved alpacas and dissected freshly killed chickens.

“Now that I’ve gotten some hands-on (experience) and know how it is, I like it.” Udemgba said. “I did it, and I felt proud.”

At first, Udemgba was afraid of dealing with the animals, but she said the more hands-on experience she had, the more comfortable she became in doing difficult, or sometimes gross, work.

“I’m happy to know that job isn’t like a 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. thing,” Udemgba said. “I can go and work outside and do different things and not sit at a computer all day.”

Udemgba is not sure on which college she will go to after high school. She is choosing between the University of Mississippi, California State University or anywhere in between.

She does know that right now she likes science, and next summer she wants to have more opportunities to learn about how the world works with science.

“I’m still completely not sure of what I want to do,” Udemgba said. “But if I had to pick today, it would be this.”