Every spring, over 200 students get locked up.
Voluntarily.
As part of an introduction to her Forensic Science course, Nursing professor Kathleen Brown leads her entire class behind prison bars.
In small groups, students see the "slamming doors, the numerous keys - what the system is like" and speak with inmates about their experiences on the inside, Brown explained.
Brown's course represents a growing trend among colleges and universities that are implementing a greater number of such courses into their curricula.
With shows like Law and Order and CSI dominating prime-time television, popular media has been a major catalyst in the growing academic interest in forensic science.
John Hurley, director of accreditation and development at the American Academy of Forensic Science, a Colorado-based organization that promotes the study of forensic science, tallied the total number of comprehensive forensic major and degree programs to be around 130.
Penn, which is unaffiliated with the AAFS, currently offers a minor in Forensic Science through the School of Nursing.
Hands-on forensic science courses like the one taught by Brown are increasingly attempting to ground students' understanding of the material in social reality as opposed to glamorized stereotypes.
College junior Rachel Garber, who took Forensic Science last spring, signed up expecting "two hours a week where I could pretend I was watching a cop show."
She was surprised by how unlike television it really was.
"It's not an entertaining thing you can space in and out of," she said.
That's exactly what John Ceccatti - director of Penn's summer programs for high schoolers, which offers a course in forensic science - hopes students will gain from these types of courses.
"Crimes are not as black and white as [television] makes them out to be," said Wharton and College sophomore Sasha Hallet, who participated in Penn's high-school summer program two years ago.
The influence of crime-related television shows is not restricted to student misconceptions, however. Popular TV shows have also begun influencing the court room, where jurors have come to expect the same amount of DNA as showed on screen.
"It's more than just footprints and fingerprints," Ceccatti said.
Despite jury disappointments, Janet Monge, who runs Penn's forensic-science program for high-school students, says that, because juries are demanding more and more forensic evidence, "careers in forensic science are probably going to outpace career growth in any other field in the next decade."
