The Eberly College of Science has established a new Post-Baccalaureate
Premedical Certificate Program at the University Park Campus. This program
is intended for a select group of academically talented, highly motivated
college graduates who do not have a science background but who wish to
prepare for admission to medical, dental, optometry, podiatry, veterinary,
physical therapy, or allied health schools.
"This program is not remedial nor intended for students who already have a science background and want to bolster their academic record in science," explains Robert Mitchell, professor of biology and director of the new program. "Those students can enroll at Penn State as nondegree graduate students or in a one-year master's degree program."
Students in the program can learn what they need to know to take the next step in their new chosen field in as little as 15 months, depending on the schedule they choose. Their schedule can be they may enroll as either a full-time or part-time student and attend either regular daytime or evening classes.
The program's courses provide excellent preparation for the health-care professions. Penn State has a long tradition of cooperative arrangements with some of the best medical and dental schools in Pennsylvania and elsewhere in the United States. Penn State ranks in the top 20 schools in the country in the number of students admitted to medical schools annually.
The program consists of 38 credits of prerequisite science General Biology, General Chemistry, Physics, and Organic all including labs. Students can complete these prerequisite courses in two semesters plus two summer sessions, or in four semesters. Other available courses include Medical Ethics; Health Policy Administration; upper-level courses in Biochemistry, Physiology, Microbiology, Neuroscience, Immunology, and Anatomy; and small seminar classes in Consequences of Science and in Medicine and Society.
Students in this program are assigned both a faculty advisor and a professional academic advisor, who will work with them in selecting and scheduling courses and planning for application to a health-profession school. They also can use the services of the Eberly College of Science Advising Office and the Penn State Career Development and Placement Service. The program's students have access to the same Eberly College of Science Health Professions Committee Letter of Evaluation that other PennState students applying to health-profession schools receive.
Other features of the program include:
Dr. Mildred Rodriguez Program Director The Pennsylvania State University 213 Whitmore Laboratory University Park, PA 16801-6101 Phone 814-863-5601
Here are the top 10 reasons why savvy Penn State science students
take part in the Eberly College of Science's Cooperative Education alternating
classroom study with full-time work in real workplaces (like government
research labs, pharmaceutical companies, and aircraft manufacturers):
10. They get a taste of real life while still being a college student living in a new city and working at a real job, while also having to take care of basics like shopping for groceries and paying rent.
9. They get to work with really awesome equipment worth millions of dollars.
8. They find out whether their major is really right for they discover not only what they like to do, but also what they don't like to do.
7. They find out what kind of job skills and personal skills they really need in the corporate and industrial worlds.
6. They begin to understand why they're studying what they're studying.
5. They make good contacts and are able to network with experienced professionals who can help their careers.
4. When the work day is over, they don't have to study (but they can).
3. They'll be able to apply in the workplace what they have learned in and vice versa.
2. They'll have an 80 percent chance or better of getting a job after they much better than the odds of the students who didn't go through the co-op program.
1. They get paid for it.
Norman Freed, associate dean of the college and a Penn State physics professor, was instrumental in setting up Penn State's co-op program four years ago. He is sold on the program, because he and his wife, Trygve, were "co-opers" themselves as college undergraduates.
"The co-op experience was really very important to both of us," Freed says, "not only in terms of what we got in tangible that is, a much-enhanced but also because of the far greater maturity that came from being on one's own in a new city, in having to work in a job, and in getting some taste of what the outside world was like while still enjoying the nurturing college environment."
Freed, along with Mary C. Fleming, the director of the program, says that while the program provides invaluable experience to students, at the same time it also gives companies a good hard look at the students as potential full-time employees. Many companies, they say, are hiring only students who have participated in co-op programs or similar programs that provide actual on-site work experience.
"The corporations see it just the way we do," says Freed. "It gives them a chance to look at a student on what is effectively a six-month-to-a-year job interview, and then decide at the end of that time whether or not they will hire that person. They rarely make mistakes after that." Adds Fleming: "Things are changing now in industry. Cooperative education is becoming more and more important to companies because it gives them an opportunity to look at students up front."
Likewise, students in the program praise it with almost a single voice:
Paul Deeble, a junior majoring in biology who expects to graduate next semester, worked in a lab at Burroughs-Wellcome, the pharmaceutical company, in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. All his work there was geared to the development of prescription drugs, including one project that dealt with research into Alzheimer's disease. "The only thing the co-op program can do is help," he says. "There's no way it can set you back."
Deeble, whose home town is Shavertown, near Wilkes-Barre, says he doesn't necessarily anticipate a job offer from Burroughs-Wellcome. But he does think the program makes it easier for participants to land a job. "Because of the program, I can say to potential employers, 'I have done these particular things' (such as doing a gel,a lab procedure involved in protein analysis), whereas other students can only say, 'I have learned about these things.' If you already know how to do this stuff, you come in much farther ahead in the workplace or in graduate school. So that's where the big advantages lie. The program gives you a lot of good practical experience."
Jill Grohal, a sophomore majoring in chemistry who expects to graduate in 1997, also went through a co-op at Burroughs-Wellcome, where she was responsible for lab maintenance and lab management. She also helped run tests to help determine the chemical structure of compounds developed by company researchers. "I've learned more from the program than from any textbook I've ever read," she says. "More often than not, in textbooks you learn to memorize what's on the page, and you have no idea what it's for. At Burroughs-Wellcome, I learned why things were really important for me to know, and I was able to put into practice the techniques I had just read about (for class)."
Grohal, whose home town is Canonsburg, near Pittsburgh, says the program "also teaches you a lot about life in general, and life in the workforce, the real world. I moved three states away to take part in my co-op, so I had to learn how to manage my time and pay my bills and arrange my finances. It makes you grow up, I guess."
Matt Fisher, a senior majoring in computer science, will graduate this May and has accepted a job with E-Systems, an electronics firm in Falls Church, Va., near Washington, D.C. Fisher took part in co-ops at Sikorsky Aircraft, in Trumbull, Conn., where he worked on documenting the capabilities of aircraft in the design process (and also got a chance to fly the firm's "awesome" helicopter simulator), and at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., where he programmed computers to do graphic displays of sound being transmitted through water.
"I can't say enough good about this program," says Fisher, whose home town is Middletown, N.J., near Newark. "The experience it gives you is invaluable." Through his co-ops, Fisher says, "I learned a lot about computer science and I also learned a lot about office politics, how to communicate effectively with senior staff, how to get rid of red tape and get things rolling, get things done, and how to deal with supervisors who didn't always accept your point of view."
Kristina Peachman, a senior majoring in microbiology, plans to graduate this May. She is now on her fourth "rotation" at Burroughs-Wellcome, where she has also been working in a lab. Peachman plans to go to graduate school, and says that two schools she has visited in the Research Triangle area "were just amazed at how much experience I had"-such as handling radioactive materials and animals and using processes such as centrifugation and high-pressure liquid chromatography. "I interviewed with one school and they offered me a position two days later," she says. "I know I would not have been offered it without all the experience I have."
Peachman, whose home town is Glen Hope, near Altoona, says the co-op program helped her realize that she needs more education for the kind of science she wants to do. In science, she says, things don't always happen the way you want them to the first time around, "just like they don't in real life."
Other students echoed these sentiments, and added that (1) the money can be very nice, and (2) even though you work hard, you're not working 24 hours a day. One participant says she ended up taking home about $450 a week during one of her co-ops, and another pointed out that there's lots of free time after office hours. "Even if you work 50 hours a week," he said, "when you get home at 5 o'clock, you've got nothing to do but go out and have a good time." Or do community service, as one group did.
Last fall, six co-op students in the Raleigh area decided to devote their free time to volunteer work at Duke University Childrens' Hospital. In addition to work and study, they also added community service to their co-op experience.
The Eberly College of Science co-op program offers a wide variety of work experience, because more than 100 employers and institutions are involved in the program and the list is still growing. Employers now participating in the program include:
Finally, Fleming notes that while some co-op participants may graduate later than planned, most graduate in four and one- half years and they do so with solid work experience that gives them a better opportunity to get a job with a significantly higher starting salary. One student in the program says that most of her friends in science majors "never graduate in four years anyway. The program's going to push me back another year, but I think it gets my foot in the door."
Alan Janesch
Volunteers Needed to Help Women in Science and Engineering
"We depend on alumnae volunteers to be mentors, especially for first-year undergraduates, and panelists and workshop volunteers for activities at the different Penn State campuses," says Sharon Luck, associate director of the Women in Science and Engineering Institute (WISE) at Penn State. Founded in July 1994, the WISE Institute coordinates information, research, and activities for and about women in the sciences and engineering at PennState. It is a collaboration between the colleges of Agricultural Sciences, Earth and Mineral Sciences, Engineering, Health and Human Development, Liberal Arts, and the Eberly College of Science.
"We focus on activities for recruiting and retaining women in the sciences and engineering," Luck says. Several WISE Institute programs that rely on alumnae volunteers are:
"The alumnae volunteers for these programs are wonderful role models for the students," Luck says. "They bring enthusiasm and a wealth of experience to our activities that we just couldn't do without." If you are interested in volunteering to help during the 1995-96 academic year or would like more information about the programs of the WISE Institute, contact:
Sharon Luck, associate director WISE Institute The Pennsylvania State University 510 Classroom Building University Park, PA 16802 phone: 814-865-3342 e-mail: smj2@psu.edu