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[ Linda Van Scoder ] Hi. My name is Linda Van Scoder. I\'m the Respiratory Therapy Directory. I think respiratory therapy is a great profession to get into because you can do so much as a respiratory therapist. You can take care of little tiny babies, adults, elderly people. You can work in critical care, you can do home care, rehabilitation, that sort of thing. And our program here at IUPUI is a bachelorette degree program, it\'s a four-year degree. It\'s the only one in the state. All of the other respiratory programs in the state are associate degrees. We\'re a little unusual, too, because we\'re a consortium, which means we bring in students from IUPUI, Ball State, and University of Indianapolis to the program. So, if you\'re one of our students, you might be sitting next to, say, a Ball State student.

[ Eric ] I chose respiratory therapy because I\'d worked in the manufacturing industry for awhile and I wanted something more challenging, more meaningful. My fiancé is a respiratory therapist and she opened me up to it. I shadowed and I really enjoyed it and saw what is out there that respiratory therapists can do.

[ Lauren ] Respiratory therapy wasn\'t my initial choice, but I\'m really happy that I fell into it. I guess my thing is that I decided to stay in school and stick with it. I chose respiratory therapy because my mom\'s one. I\'ve had a great life and it was rewarding to her, and I\'ve always wanted something in the medical field.

[ Manisha ] I had my degree in finance and marketing, but I didn\'t want to stick with finance. I wasn\'t into business as much, but I still went ahead because I had a little bit of interest. But, in the back of my head, I still wanted to do medical. So, I looked into respiratory therapy and it fit well. The classes that I took for finance did so it worked out well for me.

[ Linda Van Scoder ] We also have a setup where you take two years of prerequisite coursework and then two years of professional coursework. And, even though you remain enrolled at your home university, you still take classes and labs at Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis. And, we also send you to clinical sites around the state, as well. So that\'s a little unusual. Most of our clinical sites are right around Indianapolis, but we can go as far north as Muncie or as far south as Bloomington for clinicals.

[ Lauren ] I\'ve had many clinical days that I loved. Probably my last clinical day was the best. There was a code in the morning where we brought this lady back to life, me and another student. So that was really cool, really rewarding.

[ Manisha ] In class you sit there and think, \"why am I learning this\". But, when you go out in the real world, I notice, \"this person has this disease\", and you know the symptoms and the medicine, and all that, how it\'s going to work for the patient. It\'s a really good feeling.

[ Eric ] As far as patient interaction goes, I really enjoy that, because you see the patient at the beginning of the day. You can see how they change throughout the day, how you can impact their day in general. If they\'re having trouble, you can help them out and do little things for them, what little bit you do, how much it does impact their hospital stay.