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Congratulations to Kai Polaski!

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Congratulations to Kai Polaski!

Congratulations to Kai Polaski, recipient of a $1,000 STARBASE alumni scholarship.

“What I remember about STARBASE was team building and coming together with others to figure out problems. STARBASE helped me to communicate with others where things have gone wrong and helped me form better relationships with new people.” Kai Polaski, better known to us at STARBASE by the callsigns “Landscape” and “Sasuke” is now a STARBASE Minnesota Scholarship recipient who attended STARBASE with his classes from Achieve Language Academy. This scholarship is funded by Collin’s Aerospace for former STARBASE students enrolled in post-secondary education.

At STARBASE, Kai remembers vividly “being shot back with a burst of air from an orange device when learning about air pressure.” After STARBASE built and launched rockets with his class, he went to the hobby store to purchase more rockets to launch! At the time, he thought it was so interesting to learn how things work together to operate. When he discovered biology and physiology, he realized his passion has always been learning how things work. From rockets to the human body, Kai will reach great heights learning how things work to improve the human experience in his career.

Between a part time job at CVS working in the pharmacy and a full course load, Kai is keeping busy. He completed two years at Century Community College before transferring over to the University of Minnesota to finish his bachelor’s degree in Biology, Society, and Environments. Growing up with a mother who is a doctoral nurse practitioner, he would hear her talking and diagnosing patients, giving them advice about what they could do to help manage their diabetes. At CVS, he also gets to see pharmacists problem solve, calm customers, and explain how certain medications will work for them. After his undergraduate degree is complete, Kai plans to pursue a doctorate in dentistry, optometry, or dermatology. Each of those pathways have been sparked by real-world issues he’s seen, such as when he goes to the gym and observing effects on skin. He knows he has time before he has to make this decision because of the different rotations he’ll go through in medical school. He looks forward to those experiences to help identify which will be the most interesting to him and that draw in his attention.

A message from Kai to future STARBASE students: “Enjoy your time at STARBASE and when you find something that interests you, think about pursuing it in the future.”

Congratulations, Kai, on your scholarship! STARBASE Minnesota knows the amount of lives you’ll impact in your medical pursuits and we are proud of your endeavors in the STEM field.

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STARBASE Minnesota, Inc. is a non-federal entity. It is not part of the State of Minnesota, the Minnesota National Guard, the National Guard Bureau, or the Department of Defense or any of its components and it has no governmental status.