Penn State Science Research Opportunities

Male voice: Research is part of the human endeavor we make to try and understand the
world around us.
Female voice: Research is what I want to do, it’s why I’m here, it’s why I love Penn
State.
Male professor: For a student interested in learning how to do science, you really need
to go to a university like Penn State and the Eberly College of Science that has an
active research faculty.
Male professor: The first question I ask them is, “What are your interests? What do you
care about? What gets you excited?” I see that as an integral part of learning what
research is all about. It’s about deciding what to do next, and what discovery or what
part of the discovery to follow.
Female student: I get to research things that no one else have ever seen before. I’ve
gotten to see protein structures and be one of the first two people in the entire world
to actually see that protein structure for the first time, and that’s really cool.
Female student: I created an experiment where the students are actually the subjects themselves,
so I actually bring the students more into the experiment, gets them involved.
Female student: The labs at Penn State are doing research that’s gonna be published.
If you work in those labs, you can be cited as an author. To have your name on a published
journal looks really good for applications for graduate school.
Female student: I’ve had a chance to do graduate-level research as an undergraduate.
As a result, I have a second author publication in the Journal of Inorganic Chemistry. It’s
definitely something any grad student would be happy to have.
Male student: If you go to a hospital today with cancer, they treat your whole body. What
we’re trying to do is find a way to instead bring this medication to you so that instead
of treating your whole body you just treat that small spot.
Female student: I think my view of my ability to make a difference has changed. I thought
I could only do that if I went into specific public service roles, like being a doctor.
But joining a research lab definitely helped me see that there are plenty of other ways
you can use your interests and your interests in science to make a difference. So it’s
definitely shifted my thoughts on how I can make a difference.