Music to Our Ears: Students Find Creativity where Cadence and Chemistry Collide

Isabella Tobin:

You are listening to Living the Pharm Life, the official podcast of Purdue University’s College of Pharmacy. I’m your host, Isabella Tobin, a PharmD candidate with a passion for telling the stories of our college’s, phenomenal and loyal students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends who persistently pursue excellence in all they do.

Arianna and Felicia, I am happy to be here with you today in the practice room of Marc and Sharon Hagle Hall. For those not familiar, Hagle Hall is home to Purdue bands and orchestras. And this may be a hint about what we’ll discuss in this episode. Both Arianna and Felicia play violin in the Purdue

Orchestra, in addition to being students in the College of Pharmacy. While I don’t play in the orchestra, I do play flute in the Boiler Box Band and share a passion for both pharmacy and music. Thank you guys so much for being here on Living the Pharm Life.

Felicia:

Thank you for having us.

Arianna:

Of course. Thanks for having us.

Isabella Tobin:

Yeah. So to start, can you guys tell me a little bit about yourselves?

Arianna:

Yeah. Would you just start?

Felicia:

Sure. I’m Felicia, as you said. I’m a third-year BSPS student, and I’m from Madison, Alabama.

Arianna:

All right. I’m Arianna. I’m from Muncie, Indiana, not as interesting as yours. And I’m a fourth-year, so I’m P4, in my last year of pharmacy school.

Isabella Tobin:

So let’s start, what about pharmacy interests you?

Felicia:

Well, I like the scientific research aspect and the innovation, and so yeah, I’m particularly interested or I’ve always been interested in drug discovery. So I started in an organic chemistry lab this past year. So yeah, getting to really explore that and do summer internships, that helped me also delve into that interest. So, yeah.

Arianna:

I’ve always known I wanted to be in the medical field. I just wasn’t sure which part of it. So I really liked forensics when I was a kid. I liked puzzles and different things. So to me, pharmacy and figuring out what drug fits best for patient based on cost, based on comorbidities and all those things, it’s kind of like my type of forensics. And my mom’s a nurse. I have a lot of people in healthcare in my family, so I knew that’s what I wanted to do to help people, as cliche as that is. So I just found that pharmacy was my perfect fit for all those things.

Isabella Tobin:

Yeah, you both clearly have a passion for pharmacy. How about your passion for music? How did you find that?

Felicia:

Well, I started when I was five, not by choice, but I did not oppose to the idea. I started with my sister and then seven, I started to orchestra, then chamber ensembles, competitions. So you start to join a community and friends and help you be more competitive as an instrumentalist. So it was good.

Arianna:

Along those lines, I didn’t necessarily have a choice either, but I’m happy I did it. So I started at the age of five as well. Both my parents have their doctorates in music. That’s why we ended up in Muncie at Ball State. So my mom plays flute and piccolo, and then my dad conducts and plays bass, so they chose violin for me. And I also play flute and piccolo as well, and some piano, but piano’s not that great. So I just grew up in rehearsals and listening to concerts as a toddler and had baby Mozart CDs on when I was a baby. So always just had a love for it and it just stuck with me. And luckily, Purdue as we’ll talk about in a little bit, just was able to keep that going.

Isabella Tobin:

Yeah, I had a slightly different, I more forced my mother to let me play an instrument. I was the ripe old age of eight years old, and my music class in elementary school, we had listened to Peter and the Wolf.

Are you guys familiar with Peter and the Wolf? It’s like a Russian opera.

Arianna:

Yep.

Isabella Tobin:

And each character is played by an instrument and the bird is a flute. And I was like, “Oh, that’s really cool.” And so I went home from school that day and I said, “Mom, I’m going to learn how to play the flute.” She was like, “Oh yeah, that’s great.” And then every single day I kept going back. I was like, “Where’s my flute? Can I … Where’s the flute?” I’d never really seen a flute in my entire life. I had just heard the old Russian opera of it and I was like, “That’s going to be me.”

Arianna:

I love it.

Isabella Tobin:

And here we are. She tried to get me to play piano at first. I’ve never played piano in my life, but shows how stubborn I could be with that. Felicia, what instruments do you play?

Felicia:

I play violin/viola and then played trombone marching band in high school and piano. Yeah.

Isabella Tobin:

All right. So I mean, I feel like we’ve got a pretty talented group right here. We’re here in Hagle Hall. Obviously everybody here is part of the bands program. What bands have you participated in while you’re here at Purdue?

Felicia:

I’m just in the Philharmonic Orchestra.

Isabella Tobin:

Just in the Philharmonic Orchestra.

Arianna:

I know, right?

Isabella Tobin:

Just in the top one.

Arianna:

So I’ve been playing in them since 2018. So we actually started as two orchestras and we’ve now grown to four, which is a testament to the program for sure. So back for a couple of years I was in

Philharmonic. I’ve been in a couple of the symphony orchestras. I just kind of bounce around a little bit based on scheduling really. So kind of been all over the place.

Isabella Tobin:

Yeah.

Felicia:

That’s good.

Isabella Tobin:

Just in the Philharmonic. Why Purdue? I mean, we’re all here in our Purdue gear today. Obviously, we’re here for pharmacy, we’re here for music, but what actually drew you to Purdue itself?

Arianna:

I can start if you want. So for me, I mean I applied to a bunch of different pharmacy schools. I came to Purdue in the first place because it was in-state. My family’s always loved Purdue. At the time, I didn’t really know much about the orchestras, but once I was here, it’s honestly the perfect fit. When I looked at Butler, when I looked at other schools, you have to be a music major to play in their orchestras. And here, like Professor Budoni says, our majors are our main thing and we’re here just to play music and to have fun and be with fellow musicians. And it’s so perfect because it’s not performance-based where we’re stressed about auditions. I mean we still are, but where it’s for a grade and things like that, and it makes it very low-key and we’re able to do our majors and pursue our passion in music at the same time. So that really made Purdue just perfect for both of the things I wanted to do, which is pharmacy and music.

Felicia:

That’s good. And I also applied to several other schools. I was thinking I might be a biochemistry major, but I was like, I know I want to do pharmacy, so I’m here majoring in pharmaceutical sciences. I want to be able to apply science to the clinical realm. Yeah. And there’s been so many opportunities here that have supported my ideas. So yeah, I don’t regret it.

Isabella Tobin:

Yeah. That’s fantastic. And I mean, I’m glad that you guys chose to be here, otherwise we wouldn’t be right here right now. And I’m having a pretty good time. So I’m glad we all ended up in this place together. So as we all know, pharmacy is a very intense major. Why is it so important for you to have a creative outlet outside of pharmacy like this music hall?

Felicia:

Well, something just to … have something to remove your mind from the stress. And funny enough, there’s actually a lot of pharmacy students that play in the orchestra, Philharmonic Orchestra, and they also play violin. So you have people to confide in, be like, “How was that exam?” “Not good.” It’s really cool.

Arianna:

Yeah. Kind of the same thing. It’s just using my brain in a different way. I mean, in a way, music is a lot of math. It’s kind of a lot of the same things honestly. But just losing myself in a piece and just being somewhere else outside of pharmacy really kind of takes you away from that stress. Dean Barker and I actually connected on that, because he played Viola when he was in pharmacy school. So when I met him I was like, “Oh hey, we both play string instruments.” And that was his creative outlet too. So we’ve really connected on that and that was awesome. Just really getting away, because you can do other things, but I feel like music can take you to a different place. At least it does for me.

Isabella Tobin:

Yeah, no, I’m with you. It’s just a different way to express yourself, especially frustrations from an exam. You can just take it out on Shostakovich.

Arianna:

Exactly.

Isabella Tobin:

All right, so what are your long-term goals after you leave Purdue?

Arianna:

So at the moment I’m starting to look into residency programs. Yay, not stressful at all. But looking all over the place. But long-term after that, as far as pharmacy, I’m really interested in the VA. I would love to also be an adjunct clinical professor, maybe find a specialty that I love, serve our veterans, work as a clinician, but also give back to students. But then my mom, so she got her doctorate and then she went back to become a nurse. So she’s a nurse now and also still has her studio. She teaches, she plays in an orchestra and I would love to do something like that, have my professional career within pharmacy and then also still play in an orchestra later, after residency and finding a job and all that stuff. So a little far off, but that’s my goal is to still participate in music somehow later. What about you, Felicia?

Felicia:

Well, I’m thinking, okay, grad school, get a PhD in medicinal chemistry or synthetic chemistry. We’ll see. And then maybe get a postdoc afterwards. I don’t know, I’m thinking professor, it’s kind of like 51/49 right now. Either be a professor or just work in the R&D sector of a pharmaceutical company. So we shall see.

Isabella Tobin:

Yeah.

Arianna:

And what about you?

Isabella Tobin:

Right now I’m thinking of going into nuclear after graduation and everything. Not quite sure how everything’s going to shake out, but I’ve worked in nuclear for the past two summers. I love it. So hopefully I’ll be heading that way after graduation. And like you, I’d love to find either a band or an orchestra to keep playing in, in the future, just, I feel like it’s a great way to meet people too. There’s only so much pharmacy talk that I can take before I’m like, “Let’s talk about this band piece instead, guys.”

Arianna:

Exactly.

Felicia:

Same. Or even teach, because I’ve done that. So continue to teach on the side. That’d be fun.

Isabella Tobin:

Fantastic. All right, so I have one final question for you guys. Before closing out every episode, I like to ask kind of a fun little weird question. So my question for you today, do you call it soda or do you call it pop?

Arianna:

Pop.

Felicia:

Soda.

Isabella Tobin:

Ooh.

Arianna:

What about you?

Isabella Tobin:

Soda. Pop is outnumbered.

Arianna:

I’m the weird one.

Isabella Tobin:

I’m sorry. I’m sorry to say.

Arianna:

I know. I’m the one from Indiana. Right?

Isabella Tobin:

That’s why. All right, well thank you guys so much for being here today. It’s been really great having you.

Felicia:

Yeah, it’s great.

Arianna:

Thank you for having us.

Isabella Tobin:

Of course. Do we want to close out this episode by playing a little bit of Hail Purdue?

Felicia:

Oh, sure.

Arianna:

Of course.

Isabella Tobin:

Fantastic. All right, let’s grab our instruments.

That was good.

Arianna:

That was good. I liked that.

Isabella Tobin:

That was a good one.