Being peed on by a baby. Failed bidding wars on eBay. Undesired beer hours with co-workers. These are stories you would expect to hear after a bachelor party or a road trip, but what about at a symposium hosted by the Neuroscience and Behavior (NSB) Department?

“You don’t have to be miserable doing what you’re doing,” said Jenna Gopilan ’07, a Senior Research Associate at Vertex Pharmaceuticals and one of the speakers at last weekend’s Neuroscience and Behavior Symposium in Exley Science Center.

The NSB department hosted the symposium and panel discussion for students interested in science and health fields to illustrate the variety of careers available after graduation. The University welcomed back five successful NSB alumni from the last decade: Jenna Gopilan, MA ’08, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Rutgers University Mauricio Delgado ’97, Post-Doctoral Fellow at National Institutes of Health (NIH) Joshua Hunsberger ’00, Pre-Doctoral Fellow at NIH Dan Austin ’08, and M.D. student at Harvard-M.I.T. and Harvard Medical School Lianne Morris-Smith ’05, MA ’06.

“I’m very encouraged by the fact that they are so young and contributing to the field,” said Daphna Spivack ’13, who attended the symposium. “It always worried me that I would have to be 30 or 40 years old in order to participate or contribute to the field.”

The NSB Department hosted a similar symposium four years ago, but found the career choices presented by the speakers too homogenous.

“At our last symposium four years ago, everyone was in the academic track, pretty much like us,” Janice R. Naegde, Prof. of Biology and NSB said. “We wanted alumni speakers who were following different career paths—academia, biotechnology/pharmaceutical company, clinical research, and medicine. This time we had one person representing each of those paths.”

Speakers recounted stories ranging from Morris-Smith’s list of the pros and cons of medical school to pre-grad, pre-med research opportunities. Delgado linked humorous anecdotes, like being urinated on by a baby and his wife’s struggle to submit the winning bid for tickets on eBay, to his research on coping with conditioned fear and how negative events in life affect decision-making.

Gopilan, who graduated two years ago and now holds an upper-level position at the corporation Vertex Pharmaceuticals, offered a unique success story.

“She’s someone who has come really far in terms of what she talked about,” Naegele said. “Coming from inner-city LA, she was studying when the other girls in class were getting pregnant or doing drugs or in gangs.”

Hunsberger encouraged students to use their Wesleyan connections to their advantage in seeking career opportunities.

“Hunsberger wants to try to set up [an internship opportunity] between Wesleyan and NIH,” Naegele said. “It’s an idea that sprung up out of one of our alums coming back and saying ‘Hey, maybe I could set something up so that Wesleyan students can go work at NIH in the summer and bring techniques back to the labs at Wesleyan.”

Morris-Smith’s realistic approach to considering medical school after graduation seemed to resonate with many students. She emphasized the importance of finding the right fit, reminding students that the commitment medical school requires is not for everyone.

“I thought they all had very different approaches but I really appreciated her honesty because she was able to express a lot of my fears,” Spivack said.

“[Morris-Smith’s] topic was more pertinent to my situation,” added Ethan Grund ’13. “I’m thinking about M.D. right now, and the other speakers were more focused on PhD.”

However, not all students who attended the symposium were completely satisfied with the fields that were presented.

“I guess I was looking for some crazy, third option, where you don’t have to do research or become a doctor; you could do something else, something new,” Spivack said. “It wasn’t there. I don’t know if they didn’t look hard enough or if it doesn’t really exist.”

Nagele said that the NSB Department plans to continue and improve the NSB symposiums in the future.

“I hope that next time we can increase the diversity of career possibilities even more to include law, journalism, and scientific illustration and other possibilities,” Naegele said.