Episode Notes | Episode Transcript | AskTheGuest
As part of the Radford University Honors College Alumni, Kimber Cheek looks back at her Undergraduate Experience in this podcast. Kimber Cheek graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Anthropological Sciences from Radford University Honors College.
By her own admission, Kimber was a book nerd in high school. She also watched True Crime TV Shows, which Inspired her to study some form of forensics by the time she was a senior.
So when time came for college, she only looked at colleges with a strong Forensic Anthropology program.
Hi-Fives from the Podcast are:
Episode Title: Kimber Cheek of Radford University Honors College: Anthropological Sciences, UG Research and Evolution - The Board Game.
By her own admission, Kimber was a book nerd in high school. She also watched True Crime TV Shows. Those shows Inspired her to study some form of forensics by the time she was a senior.
So when time came for college, she only looked at colleges with a strong Forensic Anthropology program.
Kimber joins our podcast to share her undergraduate honors college journey at Radford University, UG Research experiences, Interest in Forensic Science, FBI Internship, and Advice for High School Students.
In particular, we discuss the following with her:
Topics discussed in this episode:
Our Guests: Kimber Creek graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Anthropological Sciences from Radford University Honors College. Kimber is pursuing graduate study in Biological Anthropology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
Memorable Quote: “When I was transitioning to college, it was really easy because my suite-mate was in honors, my roommate was in honors. The girl down the hall was, like most of the people in the dorm were, in honors”, Kimber Cheek.
Episode Transcript: Please visit Episode’s Transcript.
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Transcript of the episode’s audio.
And then we were paired off in groups. I was paired up with a computer scientist and two biologists. And in each of our groups, we have to design a board game that properly or as close to properly portrayed the mechanics of evolution as possible.
That is Kimber Cheek, who graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Anthro-po-logical Sciences from Radford University Honors College.
Hello! I am your host Venkat Raman.
By her own admission, Kimber was a book nerd in high school.
She also watched True Crime TV Shows.
Those shows Inspired her to study some form of forensics by the time she was a senior.
So when time came for college, she only looked at colleges with a strong Forensic Anthropology program.
Venkat Raman 1:17
Kimber joins our podcast to share her undergraduate honors college journey at Radford University, UG Research experiences, Interest in Forensic Science, FBI Internship, and Advice for High School Students.
Venkat Raman 1:35
Before we jump into the podcast, here are the High-Fives, Five Highlights from the podcast:
[Overall Radford Experience]
Courses were awesome. They were small. There were really unique courses. Like I took a cryptography course and the board game course that we'll talk about. And then it also fostered undergraduate research, which is great.
[Why Radford HC?]
By, the time I was a senior in high school, I realized that I wanted to do some type of forensics and I settled on forensic anthropology. I find five or six schools that the best forensic anthropology program in the world the best anthropology program that had that offered forensic anthropology was actually Radford
[Transition to College]
With transitioning to college, it was really easy because my suitemate was in honors my roommate was in honors. The girl down the hall was like most of the people in the dorm were in honors. And we get up and a lot of our classes, actually our honors classes were in the basement classroom of the dorm. So, five minutes before class, you'd see everybody shuffled out of their dorm rooms downstairs.
[Research in Scotland]
And so we put together this plan, it's kind of a crazy plan, we were going to go to the University of Dundee and Scotland has the Shueuer collection, which is the largest juvenile skeletal collection in the world.
[Advice for High Schoolers]
Not everybody is gonna go into college with a plan, like I did, like know exactly what you want to do exactly where you're gonna go that you're gonna go to grad school. But if you do know what you want to do and exactly where you want to go, make sure you go to a program that's going to help you get there.
Venkat Raman 3:36
These were the Hi5s, brought to you by College Matters. Alma Matters.
Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Venkat Raman 3:47
Now, I'm sure you want to hear the entire podcast with Kimber.
So without further ado, here is Kimber Cheek!
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Venkat Raman 3:55
So if you're ready, we can jump right in. Awesome. So let's start with your overall impressions of the Radford experience the Honors College experience, and then we can dive down from there.
Radford Honors when I joined was Radford Honors Academy. It didn't become an Honors College until after I left. But Radford itself is a smaller school in general. And so the Otters Academy are the group of kids I came in with it was like a very, like tight group. We had classes together, we hung out together. We lived in the same dorm, which was really awesome. And so record honors not only socially, was fantastic, but then of course, the courses were awesome. They were small. There were really unique courses like I took a cryptography course and the board game course that will talk About. And then it also fostered undergraduate research, which is great. And then just the Honors Academy were honors college now, faculty and staff are all so great and so supportive, no matter what you were trying to do, so overall, it was a fantastic experience.
Venkat Raman 5:23
So maybe, maybe you can share why you picked Radford. How did you end up there?
Yeah. So by the time I was a senior in high school, I realized that I wanted to do some type of forensics, and I settled on forensic anthropology. I find five or six schools that the best forensic anthropology program in the world the best anthropology programs that had that offered, forensic anthropology was actually Radford at the time that I went to Radford. Both Dr. Boyds were there. Mr. Dr. Boyd, passed but Dr. Boyd, Dr. Donna Boyd and Clifford both were University of Tennessee Knoxville alumni. They're both very well known in the forensic anthropology community. They had they started the Radford University Forensic Science Institute, in partnership with the medical examiner's office in Roanoke.
So in general, Radford had the best opportunity to study forensic anthropology for me, but also, Radford has the Honors Academy, which is a big deciding factor for me when coming because Radford itself is it's kind of an A B school, you can get in with a lower high school GPA, lower AP scores and things like that. But the Honors Academy gave me the opportunity to increase I guess my academic standing at courses, I've taken all those things, people want to be around. So that's, that's why I picked Radford. So it was the professors that I was going to get to study under. And then the Honors Academy.
Venkat Raman 7:12
Sure. So so when you so were you directly admitted to the Honors Academy or was that after you joined Radford?
Kimber C 7:21
So I was directly admitted, I actually I lost my my letter to apply to the Honors Academy. And I had to email Dr. King who was director at the time and I was like, I'm so sorry, I missed the deadline. Can I apply? And he let me apply and I ended up getting in before I got Radford but yeah, so I started my freshman year as an honor student, living Floyd, which is the honors dorm.
Venkat Raman 7:54
Before we go any further so you mentioned forensic, and how did you get interested in that? Where did that come from?
So my initial interest in Forensic Science in Forensic Anthropology just, it did come from watching a lot of crime, True Crime TV shows, yeah. But after I kind of like, started fine tuning and figuring out what path I wanted to go down. I realized that forensic science in general just was a really good way to help people. And then forensic anthropology in particular, I was really good with osteology and anatomy in high school. But I didn't really want to have to deal with the fleshy bits. So forensic anthropology was a way to focus in on the bones and not how Yeah, it was the way it was a way to help people conduct science as a way to help people who are like victims of crime or in the case of forensic anthropology, deceased. Whereas if I tried to go like, the more medical route, I have to deal with living people in that. Yeah.
Venkat Raman 9:10
So um, so tell us a little bit about high school. What kind of things were you interested in? Other than forensic science, which we just talked about? What were you like in high school?
High school, I was kind of a book nerd. I was outside of class. I spent a lot of time reading. Yeah, a lot of time reading. But I also was very heavily involved in church when I was when I was in high school. So I did a lot of like, church leadership groups and things like that. But overall, I was a very nerdy quiet, high schooler.
Venkat Raman 9:54
Any particular courses you liked the sciences, I would assume?
Kimber C 9:58
Oh, yeah, I took an Anatomy Course in high school that was really fun. I really, really enjoyed all the Science classes that I had. I didn't actually mind the English classes, the lit classes, obviously, because I was a big reader.
Venkat Raman 10:17
Now you show up at Radford, you're in the Honors Academy, how was that transition from high school?
Joining the Honors Academy kind of made the transition a little bit easier. Because I'm like your average freshman at Radford who's kind of just roaming a dorm with a bunch of strange people who they've never met, who might be who might not be in their majors might not be in their classes. When I was transitioning to college, it was really easy because my suite mate was in Honors, my roommate was in Honors. The girl down the hall was like most of the people in the dorm were in Honors. And we get up and a lot of our classes, actually our Honors classes were in the basement classroom of the dorm. So, five minutes for class, you'd see everybody shuffled out of their dorm rooms. Downstairs. So it was really nice, because I transitioned very easily because I had people there to make the transition easy. And I've taken classes with people I knew, and I knew where they lived. And like, it just it was a very smooth transition.
Venkat Raman 11:32
So how did you find the academics compared to high school and at least the first couple of semester, semesters,
They were a little bit more challenging, obviously, because you were doing a lot more on your own. But all of the horror stories in high school that your, your teachers drilled into your head of like, oh, it's gonna be so much worse in college, and they're gonna be so much stricter in college. That really wasn't the case, it was a lot of like, independent work. But the professors were all very chill, especially the honors professors. And the Honors College offered a lot more like seminar style classes, which was very interesting coming out of high school, because obviously, that's not really, discussion isn't really a big thing in high school. But it was pretty easy to transition. For me, at least.
Venkat Raman 12:35
With your classmates, your peers, you mentioned that most of them were honors students, at least in your dorms. How are they in general broadly.
So that was the other great thing about the Honors Program. So most of my core classes outside of my major classes, were with other honors students, and all of them were as like academically focused as I was. So if I got partnered up with other people for a group project, I knew that they were going to be at least better than complete random strangers. So we're obviously students are still students, and they're still teenagers are freshmen. So but I everyone held up academically and so like, if I needed help, or if I had a question, everyone was, like there to help each other and study with each other. And it was just my core classes were great. My now my apology, like classes my first year, it was kinda like, it was a very different experience. Because it wasn't with the other other honors students, it was a bunch of random, random people. And so it was a lot harder the first couple of semesters to like, interact and make friends and create study groups and stuff and those classes because they were larger and there were people from varying walks of life. Not that there weren't in honors, but like, less less of a concise group.
Venkat Raman 14:17
Let's transition to research, SURF research. Tell us tell us what it was, and what did you do?
Yeah, so the third program is the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship Program. And starting in, I think, the spring semester at the beginning of the semester, you submit a proposal, post budget. And so I was actually in, I guess it was the advanced. What was it called? Advanced forensic science research course and then also the advanced forensic anthropology research course that they offer today. ecology department. So Dr. Donna Boyd and I put together this proposal and we decided we wanted to do a project looking at the development of a three layer cranial architecture. So your skull is made up of three layers and table in our table. And then there's a spongy Diplo in between. So, Donna Boyd, one of her specialties, sadly, is Child Trauma, traveling trauma. She does a lot of casework in southwest Virginia involving children who have passed away. And so that was something she was really interested in. And when you're an undergrad, you kind of go with projects that you're interested in, but your advisors are also interested in your research experience. And so we put together this plan, it's kind of a crazy plan, we were gonna go to the University of Dundee in Scotland, which has the Shuar collection, which is the largest juvenile skeletal collection. In the world, they have feed most juvenile remains. So that was our most likely, because babies calls are kind of hard to get your hands on. And like with adult adults, you've got a lot of X ray data and CT data, things like that, but they don't really like to X ray or CT scan babies. So the shooter collection was our best bet. So I put an application, the proposal ended up getting it and so in the summer of oh, goodness 2017 Yeah, summer of 2017. Donna Boyd, Cliff Boyd and I traveled to the University of Dundee in Scotland and collected all of our data. The CERT program for most students usually involves staying in Rockford and they put on all these like social events for everybody staying in Rockford during the summer participating in a program. For me, it was a little bit different because I it was like a rapid Four Day International Data Collection trip. And then yeah, it was a lot of processing the data via email and stuff. And I was interning in Virginia at the time. So for me, it was a little bit of a different experience in some of the other search people but no less than awesome. The CERT program obviously provided funding to help take that trip.
Venkat Raman 17:34
Once you've got back you, I guess, processed all that data. And then any any interesting or noteworthy outcomes from them?
Well, actually, just last week, or paper finally got published. Thank you, it was it was one of those projects that we were able to put on the backburner with publishing and Dr. Boyd was going through a lot. I was in grad school, but published, there were some definite like technical interesting things about what we found. But in general, one of our conclusion was conclusions was we definitely need a whole lot more data. But we did notice some patterns. And it turned out really well.
Venkat Raman 18:21
Is there any interest in pursuing that? Or is that for somebody else?
Kimber C 18:25
That's for somebody else?
Venkat Raman 18:31
Tell me how this kind of research has impacted you. I mean, what kind of difference did it make? In addition to your coursework and other stuff that you did? How was it different? What difference did it make?
So undergraduate research in general makes a huge difference.
And for me, it allowed me not only to get experience in research, and have that on my CV to then apply in grad school, but it also gave me the opportunity to present the research.
So I did a podium talk on the research at the summer undergraduate research fellowships like presentation where everybody presented their research.
And then I presented the poster at the American Academy of Forensic Science Conference, which is where I got to make the connections with professors that I was applying to work with for grad school. I also went to the National Honors conference and presented that poster which the national honors conference, a lot of the posters that get presented are very much more in the like, psychology and literature and so having pictures of baby salts was maybe stand out a little bit.
So the undergraduate research, experience and research is what you want to do is pursuing grad school. It also gives you the option tunity to go present at conferences and present at Radford, they have many opportunities. They also did a poster forum earlier in the spring. It's particularly for students who are interested in pursuing a field that is going to take them into graduate school. Research is almost necessary. Because once you get to graduate school, you kind of dive straight in to research like the first semester, you're supposed to be coming up with your project. And having done all of that, with assistance in undergrad working closely with a professor definitely prepares you to dive straight into grad school.
So I'm very glad that I got that experience.
Venkat Raman 20:45
What Kind of skills or characteristics did you develop you think, as a consequence of doing research?
Definitely developed a lot of skills when it comes to planning out research. And like what needs to go into an actually statistically sound project, you get the skills that you know, in some undergraduate classes, you do a lot of like reading scientific articles, but actually engaging in the literature. And engaging in the research helps you learn how to navigate through tons and tons and tons of different articles. Quick, quickly assess whether an article is going to be useful for you. And it's a really good tool for graduate school. And then, my research in particular, in undergrad, we got to then network with another university. So there was a lot of networking.
Venkat Raman 21:52
Okay, so let's say from that to the Campus Activities, were you involved in various campus activities while you were at Radford?
Yeah, so what are the biggest ones that I was involved in, was I was a resident assistant, my last three years at Radford. And so that was obviously, that took a lot of time. But But through that I was involved in an organization that was called the National residence hall honorary, as well as it was another resident hall Association. That being an RA took up a lot of my time outside of being an honors and being in our theology. Because it just it was a job, it takes a ribbon board, which was great. And then involved in those two organizations. They were smaller organizations, I got to get into leadership positions, which was great for my CV. Yeah, and then obviously, I was also involved with anthropology club. But that was a lot of we did like mapping, which is like making stone pools, we made skeletons out of pocket, things like that. So.
Venkat Raman 23:22
Lot of kids come into college, not quite knowing what they wanted to study but, or will major in. In your case, it seemed like you picked the school because you thought forensic science was really important to you. And he found the program and you're stuck with it. Right. And but you also added biology, I think to that mix, it was just part of that. So why biology? What was biology and how did you end up with making that decision?
Yes, so I got a minor in biology and then I also got a minor in forensic science. Yeah. So the reason I picked those two minors was, firstly, they aligned with a lot of the credits that I was already taking for degree requirements. But biology, in particular, and then in front of the science as well. Taking those extra courses allowed me to expand my knowledge and expand my skill set. So one of the biology or two of the biology courses that I ended up taking was human anatomy and physiology. And so that definitely helped me with grad school and helped me with my intended career path. Same with forensic science. I took an intro to forensic science course and then a lot of the and forensic anthropology, forensic archaeology those courses that I took those also went towards those minors. But even the basic intro to forensic science course I took I ended up teaching intro to forensics My graduate teaching assistant, so taking those courses in the intro bio courses and like all the other bio courses, they just, they helped expand my knowledge even I took a Vertebrate Zoology course at Bradford and then during my graduate career I ended up taking birder bit vertebrates XO archaeology from vertebrate XO RPL. So Vertebrate Zoology was studying like species of different animals and things like that and classifications and then vertebrate zooarchaeology was bone identification on humans. So we did everything from fish bones to bare bones to Bobcat bones and things like that. So all the courses that I took for my minors in undergrad ended up, leaning towards and making my graduate graduate career better. So that's kind of why I decided to get minors in both of those.
Venkat Raman 26:10
So as you look back, it's been a few years since you graduated, How do you think Radford Honors Academy has made a difference? I mean, how do you, you know, what kind of differences has it made? And is it of course continued continuing to make, I'm assuming?
Yeah, So one of the biggest ones, obviously, for me at least was the social connections. Between Dr. Christensen the director and Dr. Davis, the assistant director, I still keep in touch with them, all of the friends that I have from taking classes in honors, I've made some very good friends. And of course, then there's academic impact. Record honors, helps teach me how to be a good college students. And gave me the opportunity to do research and attend conferences and work closely with professors in ways that I don't know if I would have been able to get that outside.
Venkat Raman 27:19
So something I really wanted to talk to you about is your FBI internship. Tell us a little bit about, you know, whatever you can tell us, but how does one apply and qualify what's what's required?
Yeah, so I got accepted to the internship program in the summer of 2016. The application opens up in like, August now, I think when I applied it opened a little bit later, but it's open, I think, end of August through October, somewhere in that window. To qualify, obviously, you have to be able to pass a background check to get a top secret clearance. But the current requirement is you have to have a GPA of 3.0 or higher for people who are in their junior or senior year of college I got in the summer after my sophomore year, but I have credits. credits from high school, bumped bumped me up. And then they also take people who are getting their master's degrees PhDs, juris doctorate. They look for really what well rounded and diverse students. I have interned with from criminal justice majors, but I've also interned with journalists and pre med students and policy chemists, I think it was. But yeah, they look for a really broad, well rounded student. So we look for students that are engaged in different organizations and you get really good grades. It's a very, very competitive, competitive internship. And getting denied once you should definitely apply again. It is paid. It is full time, it's 10 weeks during the summer. And it's across the entire bureau. So yeah, to be an intern. At headquarters, you can be an intern at the lab and be an intern at a field office. We have field offices, they have field offices across the United States. So it's a really, really cool program. I participated through from June of 2016 until end of 2020 because you once you get into the program, unless you royally mess up you can continue on as An intern as long as you're still in school. So when I graduated from undergrad, I just showed them my acceptance letter to my master's degree. And they I got to continue to be an intern. The one thing that they do require that you maintain at least a 3.9 GPA throughout your time as an intern. So they do check your transcripts. But no, it's a really, really cool program. I got some fantastic experiences, it definitely looked great on my grad school application. My my roommate when I moved down to Knoxville, for my master's degree, was actually a PhD student that I met while I was interning at the lab. Another really great thing about the internship program is a lot of a lot of people when they graduate from either undergrad or their master's degrees or things like that. A lot of interns as long as they do really well in the program, they can roll right into a full time position. A lot of interns do they roll into entry level positions. So it's a it's a great program, not only for the experience that you get, but also for the potential for jobs.
Venkat Raman 31:13
You obviously had some wonderful experiences as an undergrad going to an Honors College Academy in your days at Radford.
What kind of advice do you have for the high schoolers who are either in college at this point?
Yeah, so not everybody is gonna go into college with a plan like I did, like know exactly what you want to do exactly where you're gonna go that you're gonna go to grad school. But if you do know what you want to do, and exactly where you want to go, make sure you go to a program that's going to help you get there. And so for me, that's, that's what I did is I went to Radford because I knew they had a great ecology program. I went to Radford because I knew they have the Honors College, and I knew that the Honors College would provide me with great opportunities, not only for social networking, but academically I'd be in great classes, I will get great opportunities, like research, attending conferences, looking back, the other schools that I applied to, a lot of them were bigger schools, and I probably would have just got lost in the herd of students. One thing about Radford smaller so even in your core class, like in your like major classes, it's a smaller group, you know, your professors, honors even Titan sit down further.
Venkat Raman 32:39
Cool. So Kimber, as we start winding down, I was wondering if you had any interesting stories or memories or anecdotes from your undergraduate years that you might want to share?
Yeah, so I have a really cool story.
It's definitely honors related about an honors course that I took. That led to a presentation at the National Honors conference with two professors. Yeah, it was a really, really cool game. Really, really, really, really cool class.
And I guess part of the reason I want to talk about it is because it highlights how cool some of the honors courses that were offered were. But it was called Evolution the Board Game. It was a multidisciplinary course. So there were students in there who were from honors, they were students from anthropology and students from biology, it was co taught by Dr. Cassady Urista, who was an anthropologist and biologist.
Anyway, we did like a one week Crash Course bootcamp in like evolution in the mechanisms of evolution. And then we did a one week Crash Course boot camp, and design. Homework for this semester, outside of our main project was playing board games and learning board game mechanics.
And then we were paired off in groups, I was paired up with a computer scientist and two biologists. And in each of our groups, we have to design a board game that properly or as close to properly portrayed the mechanics of evolution as possible. And then we presented them for class.
And then as a class, we picked one and we worked on making this four game like a functional board game. And doctors did Dr. Davis after class who wanted to go present at the honors conference with them. They wanted to talk about board game design as a pedagogical technique. No one else volunteered, which I thought was weird, but uh, I went to I think it was in 2017. Yeah.
2017 is the national honors conference with Dr. Seuss and Dr. Davis and we did a panel discussion on board game design or pedagogy techniques, and I was a student perspective. And that was just that was super cool opportunity that I don't think most students would get without this thing. Absolutely. That was a fun undergrad.
Venkat Raman 35:13
No that sounds like a great, great one. Great one. So, Kimber, Thank you so much for sharing your story, your experiences, certainly. You know, you've stepped up and taken the initiative and, you know, had these wonderful opportunities that very few get as part of the college process. So congratulations and all the things that you've done and good luck with wherever things take you places and things, but for now, take care be safe. I'll talk to you soon.
Kimber C 35:51
Thank you for having me.
Venkat Raman 35:53
Sure Thing. And take some rest.
Kimber C 35:55
Oh, yes.
Venkat Raman 35:57
Okay. Take care. Bye.
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Hi again!
Hope you enjoyed our podcast with Kimber Cheek on her undergraduate experience at Radford University Honors College.
Kimber was very clear what she wanted to study in college.
She then leveraged the resources that the Honors College offered to become proficient in her discipline.
She did Advanced Forensic Research that took her to Scotland to gather data.
She landed an FBI Internship.
In addition to the academics, she was involved in the community through her Resident Assistantship and played leadership roles.
I hope Kimber’s story inspires & motivates you to explore Radford University Honors College.
For your questions or comments on this podcast, please email podcast at almamatters.io [podcast@almamatters.io].
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Thank you!