Office of Admissions

The freedom to explore

Mo Siddiq has always been super-curious, so he’s a perfect fit for Kristi Montooth’s lab. A population geneticist and evolutionary physiologist, Montooth designed her lab to encourage students’ inquisitiveness. She calls it “a place to think freely.”

For Mo, a biology major who joined the lab as a freshman, thinking freely has meant more than assisting Montooth with her research on fruit fly genetics. He’s also co-authoring articles and conducting his own experiments. Best of all, Montooth and the lab’s graduate students have supported him constantly, guiding him through the discovery process that’s the basis for all the science he’s learning in class.

He chooses to spend a lot of time in the lab, but he also explores his other interests, ranging from mathematics to Herman Melville. That’s one of the things Mo appreciates most about IU: Through courses, student organizations, events, and other resources, students can explore practically anything that interests them.

Mo’s explorations have paid off. With Montooth’s guidance, he is well on his way to becoming a research scientist. As he says, “Kristi is the best role model I could ask for.”

Always learning

When Megan Salisbury heard that Rasul Mowatt was looking for a teaching assistant for his Intensive Freshman Seminars (IFS) course, she jumped at the chance.

Megan is an alumna of IFS, a two-week program in August that introduces incoming freshmen to college coursework and campus life. An exercise science and recreational therapy major, she also really enjoyed the semester-long version of Mowatt’s course on the history and importance of leisure activities, in which he constantly encourages students to share their ideas.

“To me, teaching isn’t just delivering content in lectures,” says Mowatt, who has received several Trustees Teaching Awards and a Student Choice Award, which honors outstanding faculty. “It’s making sure my students are learning, in class and outside class”—for example, by helping him with research projects or IFS.

Megan learned a lot about teaching, and Mowatt learned something too. Megan’s insights led him to assign fewer “experiential projects”—such as writing a cultural critique of reality TV—and focus more on the quality of students’ work.

Insights like this are why Mowatt loves working with students. “Being in contact with students allows me to be on top of what’s going on,” he says, “so I can adapt the conversations to what they’re experiencing.”

An education in confidence

When business professor and Mathletics author Wayne Winston isn’t teaching students like Evan Kaufman about spreadsheet modeling and data analysis, he’s mining statistics for hidden knowledge—information to help NBA coaches make better decisions and win more games.

Likewise, Evan has explored his IU education as deeply as possible. Hailing from Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, and studying business economics and public policy analysis, he’s honed his skills at the Kelley School of Business, both by learning from faculty like Winston and through experiences in the Investment Banking Workshop. But some of his best experiences have occurred outside IU’s classrooms.

He’s interned at the White House. Studied at the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics and Political Science. Served as president of IU’s rugby team, the 2010 Big Ten champions. And interned in the investment banking division at Jefferies in New York City.

These experiences have given Evan something much more valuable than a stellar resume. “Confidence—being able to walk into any situation and to some degree have experienced it before—is the biggest thing I’ve gotten out of IU,” says Evan, who will join Lazard as a mergers and acquisitions analyst after graduation. “The best decision of my life was to come to Indiana.”