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[R. Roper] So, in my laboratory, we have a mix of graduate and undergraduate students. I believe each of the students that are in the lab have a project that they’re working on, so they’re testing a particular hypothesis, and really the students make the work go forward. We come up with ideas. We come up with hypotheses, which we will test, and it’s really the student’s work that helps these ideas move forward, and so my lab is very dependent on students, both graduate students and undergraduate students.

[B. Thungu] My mentor, he’s Dr. Keith Dunker, and what I did was, he introduced me to taking a research opportunity, and study proteins. I studied proteins in K 103, so I am trying to apply the information about proteins and how we can use proteins to lead to drug discoveries. It’s like everything that I am studying in class I can apply to real life.

[T. Blackgrove] The freshman work program is this fantastic opportunity. Students actually get the opportunity to work in a laboratory. You get to kind of pick which lab you think you would like to work in, and so, I actually was able to choose genetics, so I started out doing typical, menial tasks; washing dishes and making media and making sure that dry goods were stocked enough to where experiments could be performed, but then, I was able to start doing experiments.

[J. Alexander] Some students do start in a lab initially, and then continue with that process over time and get to advance in their level of expertise with regard to research, so that by the time they’re a junior or senior, they’ve really made some substantial gains and helped the labs substantially.

[J. Moor] It’s been my experience on the science courses that I’ve taken that most professors are pursuing some type of research as well as giving a lecture, and that there’s opportunities to go and see them present on the things that they are researching that sometimes coincide with what you’re learning in lecture, and it kind of reinforces the entire class when you’re able to actually see actual applications and how your knowledge can be implemented.

[R. Roper] What we’re doing here in the department of biology is giving them that opportunity to really explore, so that when they come to decide on what they’re career may be, whether it be in research, or whether it be in medicine, or in a number of other fields, they’ve had that experience already as an undergraduate student.

[J. Moor] I volunteer at Roudebush VA Medical Hospital. I’ve also shadowed quite a few doctors and pharmacists that are there, so I’ve gotten to, I have a passion for working with veterans since I’m a veteran, and gotten to see firsthand what the treatment really is and how everything works over there, so that kind of really inspired me and was an eye-opening experience as to what the possibilities are for when I graduate.

[K. Marrs] With K 101 and with biology club, we try to expose students to as many pre-professional seminars and informal talks as we can, and we have people come in from all over campus and from professional schools all around to try and give students an idea of, oh I never knew that existed.

[B. Thungu] When I first joined to IUPUI, I was overwhelmed how huge IUPUI was. I was like, whoa, this is huge. It’s overwhelming, but after staying for some time, it’s not as huge as it appears. It’s only the buildings that are huge.

[J. Watson] So, Indianapolis is, I believe, unique in that we’re not only a major U.S. city, we’re the state capital of Indiana, but we’re the linchpin in life sciences in the state of Indiana.

[T. Blackgrove] The life-health sciences are really just clumped in this one massive space that is IUPUI.

[D. Slayback-Barry] Student progress, student learning, the student focus of our department is strong. It’s about what students need to learn, when they leave, what they need to have, and the department is very dedicated to providing students with all those tools.

[K. Marrs] Well, this is a fantastic place to be a biology major and to be a science major. First, I think we have really committed professors. We have professors, who will work with students one-on-one. They’ll work with students in small groups. They will go out of their way to give students personal attention in the classroom.

[D. Slayback-Barry] In the teaching lab, we have a project and we, I, as the instructor, guide them every step of the way, so they can master the techniques as they go and understand the overall picture at the end, as well as the individual experiments as we’re doing them.

[T. Blackgrove] Biology is fantastic here. Again, the faculty are just phenomenal. Another great thing about IUPUI is that we have the life-health science internship, which was started three years ago. Actually, I was one of the first life-health science interns, and so they put you in a research setting in the medical school.

[D. Slayback-Barry] It’s funny because it feels like a family because they are taking classes together, and I will walk into another instructor’s course, and I’ll know half the class, and they’ll wave and say, hi, or they’ll talk about different instructors, and I’ll say yes, you’re taking this and yes, you’re taking that, and it feels like a very small family in that respect, so even though there are large numbers of students, I don’t think they feel lost.

[B. Thungu] Most people as in joining the clubs, making the connections with the faculty, and seizing the opportunities of volunteering, you will never ever feel like a number. You will feel as if it’s the second home you are in, so it’s like a home to me. I’m like IUPUI, it’s like, I’m going home.