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When I was growing up, I loved going to San Antonio Spurs basketball games and watching everyone cheer for the star players Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili and Tim Duncan. The Spurs have been NBA champions five times in the last 24 years — and we treat every home game as if it were the championships. This feeling of unity and a sense of community is one of my favorite things about the city.

Humberto Suarez

Madisyn Johnson is a San Antonio native and a Ph.D. student at the University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio.

I’m a San Antonio native and a second-year Ph.D. student at the University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio, or UTHSCSA. One of my favorite things about going to school here is engaging in the wide breadth of research that takes place. My dissertation work focuses on characterizing the interactions between the main driver of prostate cancer, the androgen receptor and its cofactors. However, labs around campus are performing groundbreaking research in other cancers, neuroscience, immunology and vaccines, aging, pharmacology and drug design — imagine any biomedical topic, and someone at UTHSCSA is probably studying it or something related.

This theme of diversity doesn’t end in the lab, though. San Antonio has a rich history and uniquely diverse culture that can be rivaled by only a handful of cities around the world. You can grab kolaches (Central European sweet breads) for breakfast, take a stroll by the River Walk, visit a breathtakingly beautiful art exhibit and end the night at a live jazz club, all in one day.

San Antonio offers endless beauty and culture, and the myriad experiences available here are a testament to that. I feel exceedingly fortunate to have grown up in such a vibrant, lively city and there is nowhere else I’d rather be!