To become a biology graduate student, Gustavo Arrizabalaga had to overcome daunting barriers. rowing up, Gustavo Arrizabalaga always knew that he wanted to study science. But he did not know how difficult that would be for him. Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Arrizabalaga enrolled with a scholarship at Haverford College outside Philadelphia — and almost immediately was overwhelmed. The courses were much tougher than anything he had taken in high school. He was far away from his family and home, and he struggled to speak English fluently enough to be understood. Several of his instructors wondered if he was going to make it. Slowly he began to catch up. His english professors took him aside and worked through his papers with him. He began doing research on photosynthesis in the laboratory of associate professor Julio de Paula. "The summer of his sophomore year, when Gustavo started in the lab, he really started to blossom," recalls de Paula. "His grades got better. He started working on projects on his own, and that made a big difference." Then, in his junior year, Arrizabalaga attended a seminar by a Peruvian-born expert on the structure and function of DNA. "That was a turning point for me," he says. "I told myself that if he could do it, I could do it." Now investigating Drosophila genetics at the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Arrizabalaga is about a year away from earning his Ph.D. in biology. Jan Liphardt at Reed College hopes to combine biology with law.

A World of Opportunity Biology: A Hot Degree on Campus The Path to a Ph.D. Doing More with Less at the University of Illinois Turning Students into Scientists at Reed College Preparing for Success at CCNY The Baccalaureate Origins of Ph.D. Biologists Helping K-12 Teachers Changes in the Classroom The Laboratory Experience Faculty in the Crossfire Women and Minorities The Many Paths to Success