In the Jungle; Brooks Neria

Thank you for joining us for In The Jungle, where you stay connected to the current students at Pittsburgh State University. Now, here's your host, Howard Smith. Welcome to In The Jungle, where we meet the grill as a Pittsburgh State University. I'm your host, Howard Smith, and today we're joined by Brooks Nerea, Hey, Brooks. Hello. Hey, we're glad to have you on the show and appreciate you taking time to talk with us. I know you're from Carl Junction. Tell me a little bit about Carl Junction. Great town, great school, tight-knit, pretty good education, very competitive academically. Great place to grill up in. Now, you had a lot of classmates come over here with you too, didn't you? Yeah, that's one of the bigger reasons I came to Pitt is a lot of people, you know, come to Pitt. And a lot of classmates from CJ are here. Speaking of coming to Pitt, why'd you choose Pitt? So I live about 35, 40 minutes away from Pitt, so I mean, that's an alright distance. I don't need to go home. If I do need to go home for something I can, I had a job. But Pitt, that I really liked and didn't want to leave, that was actually a really big reason I stayed and came here. What's a job?

I work in the Kansas Polymer Research Center, there's, yeah, a research over there. And I enjoy the job and I think it's going to help me a lot in the long run, so I really didn't want to leave because I don't think I could get a gig like that anywhere else. Very unique research opportunities over there, especially for, when I got the job I was in high school, especially for someone who's, you know, not even a grad student or not even an undergrad student, very good stuff going on over there. Cool. So what can you tell me what you do? Don't you're not very secret. Yeah. There are a bunch of different scientists over there at the Kansas Polymer Research Center who are researching on different materials and chemistry tests. And I work under Dr. Ron Gupta, who is primarily in charge of like nanotechnology and energy efficiency. So most of my time is spent creating alternative course for batteries and seeing how they function as, as like long-term batteries, like a phone battery. And so trying to make like eco-friendly batteries that are cheaper for the most part. So now this, what's your major?

Biology. Okay. Why biology? Because I like to fish. Okay. Kind of a whim. Honestly. So, but this is kind of related to your major. Yeah, somewhat. Yeah. Definitely. It definitely helps and vice versa. But yeah, I mean, I really didn't want to be in declared, you know, and I was pretty sure. Field biology was way to go. And at the moment, I still think I'm going to stick with it, but it's a solid. It's vague. It's still useful at the same time. Now, you're kind of, you know, your homes kind of in a distance where sometimes people commute. But I know you're living in the dorm. How's that working out? It's fine. It's good stuff. It's personality-wise, like I do pretty well on my own. So I mean, if you don't have any home issues, the dorms are great because you live on your own. You get absolute freedom. And it's pretty hospitable. As long as you take care of yourself, all this stuff is pretty nice. Well, it is kind of nice. I mean, I know you love your home. I know you love your home. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. They're great. But it's also kind of neat, too, to be an individual. Oh, yeah. Definitely living. Well, I guess I'm not completely on you. With a roommate. Right. So being out of the house is great in a lot of ways. I know you stay here on the weekends, too, so. Yes. What are you doing? Usually. You don't have to tell me everything. I work a lot. I go to football games. There's always something going on in the evening. The big news always doing stuff. Yeah. It's fun to go over there. And with, I feel like a lot of people don't realize the access to the big news, like offers to students, like the crazy shows and big names you come through there that you'll be able to see for like sometimes nothing as a student, you know, it's kind of crazy. But so I like to go over there and yeah, there's always something happening. Well, I'm, and I'm actually glad that you mentioned that there's, it's more than Broadway shows. Now, we love Broadway shows. Yeah. Oh, yeah. There's a lot of other events that take place from speakers to, to musicians to acts. Yeah. It's crazy. Like big, big names towards the big news. So it's good stuff. Let's, let's talk biology for a second.

Okay. What's your goal? What do you want to be when you get here? Yeah. I'm going to go to grad school and I want to do research and eventually I want to get a PhD and be a research professor somewhere. Wow. Well, that's cool. But I think biology is what I want to, to feel that I want to stay in. Now, you're in a, what they call a living learning community, I believe, in biology. Yeah, sure. And I also know you're an honors college and it's actually two of those. Tell me a little bit about that experience. Like the LLC, so it's like a dorm cluster, well, so where they put us all in and our majors are pretty closely related. So they like to have stuff that's like transversible. So they're, I live near a lot of other biology majors and some business majors and some nursing majors, I think. I think that's mainly who comprises the LLC where I live. And they provide like a spare room that you can use as a study room. They have a big whiteboard in there so you can go study and have big study groups. And like, yeah, it's nice because a lot of people have study with live right near me. And so we can just go to the study room.

Yeah, definitely notice the LLC, like the benefits of it. It's good stuff. It'd be cool if they were all over campus at one point. That is neat. How's food? Food? Dylan? Well, well, I'm not, I mean, like I, it's hit or miss, but it's, I mean, it's good. There's always like a, like there's always a fallback, like burger or pizza or something if the entree is bad. I mean, sometimes the entree is real good, but sometimes it's just like, whoa. Everybody's got a style, right? But you got, yeah, that's neat to have, that you do have something to fall back on. Yeah. He has a freshman. I mean, you're, you're getting oriented to campus and you're, you're learning about anything. You've not been here a long time yet, but what's been your most challenging class so far? Probably principles of biology won, I'd say. It's just, when not, I mean, like not so much curriculum, just like, it's a lot different than obviously high school. Like, well, like the thing is for a lot of my classes actually, like the first test wasn't so much like studying the curriculum. I mean, it was obviously, but the biggest takeaway from the first test is now you know

what the professor wants to study. So because they're going to give notes and they're going to lecture and they're going to reference the book. And so like, you know, after the first test, you realize, all right, here's what was on the test and it was mostly lecture or mostly book. Hey, what advice would you give to a prospective student considering pit state right now? What would you tell them about why they ought to consider coming to school here? Well, it's a college town, which is great. Like it's very communal. When schools and sessions, there's always something to do. And like whether it's on campus or off campus, like there's a lot of stuff that goes on downtown and pit, like a paint town red and whatnot, and it's a hip scene. And for a lot of people, it's really central. Like I find that within a radius of Pittsburgh, people from every direction are here. But yeah, it's diverse group. I mean, you'll find people fast, you know, whatever you're dealing with. Oh, I can. And that proves why you belong at Pittsburgh State University. Brooks, thanks for joining us in the general today. I'm your host, Howard Smith, and we'll see you next time.

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