Student Perspective: Amy A. Caudy

CSHL is one of the most perfect places to do science that I could imagine. First, there are terrific interactions between people in diverse disciplines. The institution is just the right size to make it possible for a person working on RNAi in Drosophila and mammals to continually rub shoulders with neurobiologists, plant biologists, and cancer biologists. The interactions among the scientists here are further enriched by the thousands of scientists who arrive throughout the year for meetings and courses. Second, CSHL makes it easy to do ambitious experiments by providing many excellent shared resource facilities. For instance, the tissue culture facility was able to provide me with over 100 liters of suspension cell culture for a large-scale purification effort. Finally, the School fosters an environment of high expectations. The intellectual rigor of the Scientific Reasoning and Logic core course sets the stage for a research environment where graduate students can eagerly debate the latest results and plot the course for exciting new experiments with research advisors, postdocs, and other graduate students.