STEM Students Embrace New Ways of Learning, Inside and Outside the Classroom

“As the improv session went on, it was exciting to express my creativity,” Essid, an engineering major, said. “I met new classmates and made them laugh, which is always an amazing feeling.”

And, Essid said, she became more comfortable thinking on her feet.

That’s the goal of using improvisational theater in an engineering class, said Gennifer Smith and Lauren Sassoubre, professors in the USF engineering  program. Being a good engineer means thinking on your feet — and also being able to navigate ambiguity and build on other people’s ideas, Smith said. Traditional engineering classes don’t always emphasize those skills.

The sweatbands? To emphasize how much of a workout the class is, Smith and Sassoubre said.

As the improv session went on, it was exciting to express my creativity," Amina Essid said.

STEM professors at USF are teaching in new ways — emphasizing collaboration between different classes, adding unexpected experiences (like improv), and traveling on immersions to fully learn a topic — and students are responding, said Sangman Kim, assistant professor of biology.

Kim and Herman Nikolayevkiy, assistant professor of chemistry, brought their microbiology and organic chemistry students together to synthesize novel antibacterial compounds. The students from the two classes created and successfully tested compounds that kill bacteria that can cause disease in humans, including the staph bacteria MRSA that is resistant to many antibiotics.

Kim says that there’s “a lot of data out there to back up the beneficial effects” of cross-major collaboration in STEM.

Cavina Lee ’23, a biology graduate, helped Kim and Nikolayevkiy with the experiment’s proof of concept before they conducted it with students. “This experience played a pivotal role in my journey to becoming a PhD candidate in the biological chemistry department at UC Irvine,” Lee said.

In January, James Sikes, chair of the biology  department, led a group of biology students and environmental science students on an immersion in the Galapagos. The students explored the islands’ wildlife while connecting their observations to evolution and ecology, Sikes said.

Madeline Gregor ’25, a biology major, won’t forget what she learned in the Galapagos. “Swimming alongside sea turtles, eagle rays, sharks, and other marine species in this otherworldly environment felt like stepping into a living, breathing ecosystem,” Gregor said.

Meanwhile, Elsa Tippy ’25, another biology major, said she won’t forget the principles of natural selection, the influence of abiotic factors, and how the global landscape is influenced by tectonic plates.

“The trip to the Galapagos provided real world applications to many of the concepts and theories of biology that we’ve learned about in class,” Tippy said. “For those who learn through experience, it was the best way to learn.”

Swimming alongside sea turtles, eagle rays, sharks, and other marine species in this otherworldly environment felt like stepping into a living, breathing ecosystem,” Madeline Gregor said.