When passing a scalar value to the indexing operator, as with step 2 and step 5, a scalar value is returned. When passing a list or slice, as in the other steps, a Series is returned. This returned value might seem inconsistent, but if we think of a Series as a dictionary-like object that maps labels to values, then returning the value makes sense. To select a single item and retain the item in its Series, pass in as a single-item list rather than a scalar value:

>>> city.iloc[[3]]
INSTNM
University of Alabama in Huntsville    Huntsville
Name: CITY, dtype: object

Care needs to be taken when using slice notation with .loc. If the start index appears after the stop index, then an empty Series is returned without an exception raised:

>>> city.loc['Reid State Technical College':
             'Alabama State University':10]
Series([], Name: CITY, dtype: object)