Orientation Acclimates New Biomedical Graduate Students

By Dirk Hoffman

Organized by the Office of Biomedical Education (OBE), the overall goal for the event was to emphasize a culture of collaboration over competition, and to get students from different departments and programs interacting with each other early, according to Brittany Sandor, the OBE’s assistant director of communications.

Seventy-two master’s and doctoral students participated in orientation, which took place over two days Aug. 22-23 and included various team building and icebreaker opportunities to foster the idea of collaboration.

The first day’s session started off at the Jacobs School building on the downtown medical campus with welcome remarks from Allison Brashear, MD, MBA, UB’s vice president for health sciences and dean of the Jacobs School; and John C. Panepinto, PhD, senior associate dean for biomedical education.

Brashear noted the world of biomedical sciences is complex, dynamic and brimming with opportunity and told the students “a hallmark of success in this field is collaboration.”

“At the Jacobs School, you will work alongside our world-renowned faculty, including scientists, clinicians, engineers and experts from a myriad of disciplines. Embrace these collaborations; they are your greatest asset.”

Brashear also told the students to: “be open to new ideas, challenge assumptions and foster a culture of innovation.”

Other morning activities included a presentation by Elizabeth A. Colucci, assistant dean for graduate professional development at UB’s Graduate School, on available professional development opportunities; a game of “human bingo” to encourage students to meet and interact with others; and a session led by Elizabeth White, the OBE’s director of graduate enrollment, on success and onboarding to provide students with logistical information and an idea of expectations.

During lunch, the OBE’s student ambassadors led conversations on topics such as academics, housing, transportation, mental health, social activities and life at UB, and exploring Buffalo.

Afterwards, the students were introduced to the Metro Rail, which they then rode to UB’s South Campus, where they took part in the Academic Health Center (AHC) Resource Fair and a Lab Olympics activity.

The resource fair was open to all incoming graduate students from schools under the AHC and aimed to assist students in getting to know the resources that will help them find connections in the Buffalo community, and in establishing relationships with services offered through UB, according to Melanie Vasquez, graduate assistant for the OBE, who organized the resource fair and Lab Olympics events.

The Lab Olympics were a series of science-themed team building activities intended to instill camaraderie and practice skills in communication, leadership and teamwork.

Among the events were:

• Pipette Precision: While wearing kaleidoscope goggles, teams attempted to recreate an art piece using pipettes
• Microscope Mastery: Teams worked together to accurately match specimens using mini microscopes

On the second day, students participated in a required lab safety training session and then attended individual department/program information sessions.

Orientation concluded that evening with a mixer hosted by the Biomedical Graduate Student Government.