Baylor’s Laparoscopy Lab, known across campus simply as Laparo, gives freshmen hands-on surgical training and a full year of guided research experience before they ever apply to medical school.
Author: Aarah Sardesai
Aarah Sardesai
Aarah Sardesai is a freshman bioinformatics major from Cedar Park, Texas. Outside of class, he enjoys hiking, spending time with friends, discovering new TV shows, trying different cuisines, and practicing Kendo. After graduation, he plans to attend medical school and pursue a career in medicine.
That gap in understanding of the collaboration of patient care is what San Jose, Calif., sophomore Ananya Bharathapudi and Tulsa, Okla., junior Enzo Henry hope to address. Baylor’s Interprofessional Events, a series created in partnership with the Office of Prehealth Studies, aims to help students see healthcare as a team‑based, interconnected field.
Highlighting early learning, family support and community involvement, United Way of Waco’s annual Week of the Young Child is giving Baylor students the opportunity to reflect on what it means for a city to uplift its youngest residents.
When we allow ourselves to be useless, we’re going against the idea that the value of us as living beings is tied to our output, our bank accounts or our GPA. We give our brains a chance to rest, and more importantly, we give our minds a chance to catch up to our bodies. We remind ourselves that we are human beings, not human doings.
Two current Pre-Health mentors, Placentia, Calif., junior Molly Laporte and Chicago junior Carter Wright, said the drive to mentor came from a desire to give freshmen the support they wished they had or deeply appreciated when they were in the same shoes.
The stress of late-night studying sparked a student‑led partnership with Moody Memorial Library to launch a digital wellness page. San Jose, Calif., sophomore Ananya Bharathapudi said the goal was to offer encouragement, community and mental health support to students studying on campus.
Launched under the School of Engineering and Computer Science, the Biomedical Engineering Program is designed to prepare students for careers in medical device design, biomechanics, imaging and graduate study in medicine or research. Faculty such as Dr. Jonathan Rylander, a lecturer in mechanical engineering, described it as a natural fit with Baylor’s mission to combine innovation with service.
Sing Alliance is known for its high-energy themes and open-door policy; it’s become the route for many freshmen looking to take the stage in their first year at Baylor. For Waco freshman Zayn Matthews and Montgomery freshman Haley Conner, the organization gave them more than just the stage; it gave them a family.
Walk through the SUB on any given Tuesday, and you’ll hear it: the low-hum anxiety of the junior slump mixed with the chime of AI-tutor notifications. We are the generation of the 49%. We’ve seen the headlines, and we know that half of the country thinks our degrees are about as useful as a VHS tape in a streaming world.
Hosted by the Baylor chapter of Alpha Epsilon Delta and the Office of Pre-Health Studies, the event provided a bridge between undergraduate aspirations and professional reality. The symposium featured representatives from over 40 professional schools, ranging from medical and dental programs to veterinary and physical therapy schools. Vivan Huynh, AED vice president of scholarly events, said her own experience as a pre-health student motivated the event.
The Rare Neurological Disorder Foundation will launch its inaugural Founding Cohort Fellowship this month, a selective fellowship designed to restructure the organization into a national powerhouse for rare disease advocacy by 2027.
As NASA moves closer to returning humans to the moon, Baylor students say the excitement on campus reflects something larger than a single mission. For some, Artemis is a childhood dream coming into focus. For others, it signals a future where space exploration is more diverse, more collaborative and more accessible than ever before.
As Baylor’s spring semester starts settling in, Baylor students say their emotional well-being is based on two main forces: the strength of Baylor’s community and the pressure of academic demands.
From finding the right roommates to looking for a neighborhood that feels just like home, some students who signed their first lease walk away happy, prepared and satisfied that they’re taking their first step to an independent life.
