Medical laboratory Science (MLS) students, along with 3 faculty, from the College of Health Professions attended the American Society for Clinical Laboratory Science (ASCLS) legislative symposium at the State Capital in Lansing, Michigan on September 22.  The students listened to speakers on topics pertaining to state and national legislative efforts impacting the field of MLS and gained knowledge about the importance of their voice in the legislative arena. As soon-to-be future laboratory professionals, they also learned “protocols” on how to best engage their government officials to influence them to make decisions that positively impact their chosen profession. They also attended a Michigan House of Representatives session in the State Capital building in order to see the Michigan legislative process in action and were recognized as a group of young MLS professionals by Kevin Cotter, the Speaker of the House. They coincidentally met up with another group of Michigan students that suffer from PANDAS, which stands for Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorder Associated with Streptococcus, that were also visiting the Capital on that day. This group was present to garner awareness for their rare disorder and were very surprised to learn that our MLS students were aware of this disease.  PANDAS, an under-recognized and rarely understood infection is characterized by OCD behaviors-including motor tics, and is caused by a prior bacterial infection with Streptococcus organisms. Our MLS students made us proud with their willingness to engage and share with these young people what they had learned at Grand Valley in their microbiology course. For more information about the MLS program at GVSU, visit https://www.gvsu.edu/mls/.