Why UChicago? Nicole Kasal

In an odd twist of fate, the health preoccupations of my elementary school years - oddball hypochondriac tendencies included - proved to be the unlikely catalyst to my deep interest in microbiology and contagious disease. Perhaps it was simply a case of morbid curiosity; nevertheless, I found myself more fascinated with Streptococcus and Tuberculosis in biology class than the tireless immune system that wars against them. Since then, my time in the lab and in the classroom has made me view the study of pathogens one of the most important ones in existence, and though I may not yet have a clear vision of my future, I can say with confidence that it will somehow involve our millions of miniscule neighbors.

However, since many colleges do not offer this specialized of an undergraduate major, I was about to resign myself to the much broader study of biology until I discovered that the University of Chicago offers a specialization in Microbiology along with its Biological Sciences major. A path that I had long since abandoned suddenly opened itself to me again. Could I really gain a broad background in biology as well as dive deeper into a topic I was so passionate about?

Of course, though microbiology does mark a prominent point of...