How to Get Involved: Graduate Student Associations
Graduate Student Associations (GSAs) are integral to the graduate student experience and they are a great place to start getting involved in your department. Once you enter graduate school, GSAs are one of the first organizations you will encounter. Whether you want to attend events and interact with other graduate students or you ;want to be part of the organizing team, GSAs can provide various opportunities for you!
The Eberly College of Science has 5 GSAs from the Departments of Chemistry; Biochemistry, Microbiology and Molecular Biology (BMMB); Statistics; Biology; and Physics. These GSAs organize social and community-centric events as well as events for networking and professional development. Most of these are free and open for anyone to attend. Although it has been difficult during recent years, your peers in GSAs have been working hard to organize events for graduate students. We will highlight some of the important events organized by these 5 GSAs here. If you are interested in joining any of them, please reach out to the respective organizing committees for more information.
The Chemistry GSA has been organizing a variety of social events such as lake days and hikes. These are a great way to interact with other graduate students from the department. They have also been conducting outreach for the community. One of the outreach initiatives is called Virtual Scientist. The Virtual Scientist team has been developing easy, fun, at-home science activities for kids and demonstrating them over Zoom. The videos from these demonstrations are available on the Chemistry GSA website to share with your friends and family. They have also been carrying out in-person outreach for elementary kids through a program called ‘Summer Scientist’ at a local park in State College.
The BMMB GSA is also excited to organize more social events during the upcoming semester. Although they haven’t been taking place during the pandemic, the BMMB GSA typically organizes events called Lion Lunches. According to Erin Reilly, president of the BMMB GSA, “Lion Lunch provides a low-stakes opportunity for students to work on their public speaking, science communication, and get constructive feedback from peers; it also allows students to grab a bite to eat while hearing about what research is going on in the department and networking with their peers.” They will also be looking for representatives from the first-year BMMB students in October or November, so keep an eye out for opportunities to get involved.
The Biology GSA conducts events such as a welcome picnic in the fall and friendsgiving. They also have a program called Biobuddy where they pair new students with other graduate students from their department to provide mentorship. It is always great to have someone you know in the department that answer questions about the department, program, living in State College etc. For more information about their events, you can check out their website.
The Statistics GSA organizes weekly workshops that cover topics related to research methods, professional development and more. The schedule for the weekly workshops can be found on their website. They also have a useful list of department and university resources and course notes for statistics students on their website. A list like this where everything you need can be found in one place is very useful. Along with the workshops, they have also been organizing social events for their members.
After a break, the Physics GSA will start to return to their regular activities soon. Although not formally as a GSA, some of the graduate students had been organizing activities to foster a sense of community and help build associations within the physics department during the pandemic. According to Brett Green, president of the Physics GSA, “With the return to campus, we hope soon to resume our well-loved weekly lunch socials. We are also beginning to organize other social activities and assemble a physics grad program wiki.” Weekly lunch socials are a great way to meet and socialize with other students from the department. If you are interested in getting involved with that or any of their other activities, please reach out to them.
As the semester gears up, GSAs across our College are looking to get back to their regular schedule of events while being safe. Together, they provide a plethora of resources and activities that can improve your experience at Penn State. Which student organization do you want us to cover next? Let us know at sciencenews@psu.edu.