This provides excellent opportunities for students to meet outstanding scientists from outside the Washington University scientific community. Several symposia each year also bring internationally recognized speakers to campus to address topics of broad and current interest to scientists. Many journal clubs meet weekly and offer a regular opportunity for students, postdoctoral fellows and faculty to present and discuss current papers in the scientific literature. Graduate students are encouraged and expected to contribute to these informal sessions by presenting before the group and by participating in discussions. Equally stimulating are the traditional Program retreats at which students and faculty reconvene in a new environment for fellowship and discussion of their research.
Retreats provide an informal opportunity to exchange ideas and share thoughts.
The Division also provides funds for each student to attend a national scientific meeting. The activity level is high at the Division. Students are an integral component of the research enterprise at Washington University. In recent years, many have contributed to high impact scientific journals. The School of Medicine's Medical Library and Biomedical Communications Center comprises 113,000 gross square feet of shelving for more than 269,000 volumes, almost 2,800 journal subscriptions and computer information management systems that provide access to information from an enormous variety of sources.