[music]
My name is Brad Bartholomai, I'm a microbiology major and a senior at Nebraska.
When I graduated from high school, I thought that I wanted to be a performer in musical theater.
That's kind of what I had done growing up.
So I moved to New York and I danced and had a really great time.
Probably my biggest accomplishment was I performed in the North American tour of Cats.
And that was a really, really great experience.
After five national tours of musicals, I just kind of got sick of living out of two suitcases,
and I knew that not having my degree was going to be limiting to the opportunities I would have in the future.
[music]
I was really drawn into the science classes.
Then I started working in a lab with Dr. Cathy Chia.
CHAI: So then multiply everything by seven.
She's really been a great advisor and mentor for me.
Just seems to make sense for me to switch to the new microbiology major because
there are microbes everywhere.
So pretty much anything you can think of you can do with microbiology.
[music]
I never expected that being a big university that I was gonna have the opportunities that I've had at Nebraska.
Having that kind of feel that you would expect and having the resources you would expect at a small
school at a big research university, that's really awesome.
[music]
I want to be a university professor myself.
I've had the opportunity to have some teaching assistantships.
And I've taught some lab sections and I really enjoy helping people connect the dots.
And especially understand the basic fundamental ideas in biology that are gonna carry them through
the rest of their coursework.
Lincoln is really unique because there are a lot of opportunities to do really whatever you want.
But there's still kind of that hometown feel.
[music]
I really think that molecular genetics is the future of biology and I am excited to be in
on the ground floor of that.
I really feel like with microbiology, the possibilities for my future are endless.
[music]