"What am I going to do now?"
Senior Microbiology Major Checks Out Her Options

A self-proclaimed perfectionist and “work-out fiend,” Janelle Kenzor finds time to carry a packed course load, work 10 to 15 hours in a lab, play four intramural sports, and even after switching majors her sophomore year, graduate after only four years at IU. “I try to keep myself busy. I don't like to sit and waste time,” jokes Janelle.

Like most seniors, Janelle, a microbiology major with a chemistry minor, is trying to figure out the next step. “It's nice as a sophomore and freshman when you're in college and having fun, and then you get to your senior year, and it's like ‘What am I going to do now?'”

Torn between graduate school , where she would like to pursue a master's degree, and a promising entry-level job at a pharmaceutical company, Janelle is keeping her options open.   These days, she attends career fairs, submits online resumes, and after discovering a passion for the study of virology, meets with professors to discuss graduate school.

And Janelle has added a big dose of research to her day. After an unsuccessful search for an internship last summer, Kenzor realized that she needed to spend more time at the lab bench.   “My favorite thing about work right now is the experience. One of the reasons I didn't get an internship at Lilly last summer was because I hadn't done much research,” said Janelle. “[The recruiter] said, ‘On paper your grades are fine and your degree is what we need but you haven't performed enough in the lab setting so that we feel you would be competent in doing this job.'”

Janelle now spends 10 to 15 hours a week in Professor Carl Bauer's lab attempting to purify an aerobic protein with her research partner.   Although their research has recently hit a “stumbling block” after a promising summer, Janelle notes that the experience is still invaluable.   “Before this I had only been doing DNA sequencing and mundane computer work in the lab. And now I actually get to run proteins on gels, see proteins separate, and do Western Blots – all the things you read about in class and you learn what they're supposed to do, but now I actually get to do it in the lab,” said Janelle. “You can read it forever and memorize what the things do, but when you actually do it . . . you finally grasp it.”

For undergraduate students who wish to gain lab experience, Janelle recommends that students search for a good match between their research interests and the professor's work. “Read through the professor's web pages and bios and research interests. If anything sparks an interest in you, e-mail four and five and go talk to them.”

Janelle is also a two-time recipient of the L.S. McClung Scholarship and a current recipient of the Microbiology Undergraduate Summer Research scholarship, which enabled her to work 40 hours a week in the lab this past summer gaining essential research skills. Check out the list of scholarships for 2006 in this newsletter or online at www.bio.indiana.edu/events/development/scholarships.html.