Name: Tom Holme

Official title at Iowa State: Professor of chemistry

As a student, what was your favorite part about your first year in college?: Having the chance to find out where I stacked up as a student. I was never sure in high school if I was a good student or if I just was from an easy high school.

As a student, what were some challenges you faced in your first year in college?: Getting used to meeting real deadlines. In high school my teachers always seemed willing to take an assignment a day or two late. In college I didn’t find that to be true. A late paper was a zero, no questions asked.

What is some advice you would offer new ISU students?: It’s not a bad idea to adopt the sentence “How do you know?” as your favorite sentence in college. In classes, you are going to have to answer this question — it won’t be enough to give a number for a math problem, for example, your teachers are going to want to know how you know. It’s also important when you ask fellow students for advice that you get some handle on what/who they are relying on for the source of their answer. If you don’t like the source of an answer when you ask “How do you know?” then you might want to ask another person the same question, just to be sure.