Bioinformatics

Alumni Testimonials

Arvind Sekhar

Graduating with a job is always pleasant. When the job actually derives so much out of your class room experience it is even more gratifying. I joined the IU School of Informatics during fall 2006 and was looking forward to pursuing my MS in Bioinformatics. My advisor Dr. Mahoui and the professors of the School of Informatics deserve my sincere appreciation for the student friendly attitude they carry. This is at most essential when graduate students are looking to find jobs by the time they graduate. A significant amount of time is required for a fruitful job search.

My job search was largely helped by various resources of the IU School of Informatics and also from IUPUI in general. A great start is to register at the School of Informatics career services center handled by Beth Haggenjos and Brian Benedict. They are always open to students and patiently answer our questions and counsel us with all our queries and doubts. Their system also sends email alerts whenever job postings matching your specific criteria are available and frequently there are emails sent out by the career services center about upcoming job fairs, full time job opportunities, and internships. The career services center helps students compose good resumes and offer valuable suggestions at times of need.

I would definitely say, our professors are always there for us with this issue. I remember Dr. Perumal trying to network with a scientist from Eli Lilly to get an internship collaboration working successfully though it did not work through. But the actual effort from a professor apart from his busy research schedule was just awesome. Moreover, he was instrumental in providing me contacts of some of the School's alumni whose contacts were not immediately available from the website.

I was lucky to be a part of an internship in my field of study which was mainly achieved through the efforts of my advisor Dr. Malika Mahoui in getting the collaboration working. The internship, as it turned out, led me into my current full time opportunity. There are also times when students require reference letters from professors. I have never had a problem getting these from my professors irrespective of the number of occasions i have asked them to do so.

I would be failing if I forgot to mention the administrative staff, which is most times sending out information for students about job fairs, on campus opportunities and any open positions. Also the ability to attend career fairs at the School of Informatics at IU Bloomington comes as a good bonus.

I would definitely state that for a student who is willing to be proactive, the School's set of faculty, staff and resources are always open for utilization.