My name is Alyana Jansen; my friends call me Aly. I am a Forensic Science major with a minor in Chemistry and a certificate in Crime Scene Investigation. This will be my second year at UCF. In May of 2025, I graduated from George W. Jenkins High School in Lakeland, Florida (my hometown). One of my favorite classes at UCF so far has been Introduction to Forensics with Professor Bridge. I loved this class because each week I got to explore various fields of forensic science that I never knew were options for someone with my major. There were multiple different speakers as well, who each spoke about the work they do and gave me an insight into the areas I could go into! My favorite professor at UCF is Dr. Atiya Banerjee, who prefers to go by Dr. Energy. I had him for Fundamentals of Chemistry 1, and he is such a fun and caring professor. Throughout this course, he took the time to listen to class complaints or confusion and altered his teaching style to better work for us, as well as giving breaks between material chunks, so it wasn’t too much information at once. Dr. Energy also has good music taste that he plays before classes, and I even got him to make a Spotify blend with me that I use when studying. I love the GEMS program and decided to get involved with it as a mentee in the fall semester of my freshman year at UCF. My experience as a mentee helped me through my whole first year here and gave me many of my now best friends, which is why I decided to continue my involvement in GEMS as a mentor myself! As a mentor, I am excited for the opportunity to support and help STEM majors currently facing the obstacles I have surpassed; for mentees, it is a huge comfort in college to have people who can relate and give advice based on their experience, which is why GEMS is so important. In my free time, I love reading, going to concerts, and watching/making TikTok! 

Words of advice for the GEMS freshman students: As someone who was in your shoes only a year ago, I think it helped me most to remember that there is so much life left for you to live, so why not live it to your fullest potential?!