Going to one of the largest universities in the nation, it is easy for me to find ways to further my career and expand my professional network during my undergraduate years. Right now, I am hoping to work in the field of sports medicine.

This year, there were two things that I feel have really opened up many doors and opportunities for me in terms of medicine and athletics: my scholars program and volunteering at The James Comprehensive Cancer Center.

The Dunn Sport and Wellness Scholars program has done many things to help me network with professionals in medicine and sports related fields. For example, each Tuesday night, our coordinators brought in different people who work in medicine, for Ohio State Athletics, or for professional sports teams around Columbus. This allowed me to meet many people and talk to them about how they got to the career that they are currently in. Learning about where people started and how they grew professionally has really opened my eyes to many different route that I can take to work in different sports and medicine related fields. It has also created a network of professionals that I have met to help me meet others in the sports medicine field, and can serve as connections throughout my career here at Ohio State and beyond.

Another experience that has really opened up a lot of doors for me is volunteering at The James Comprehensive Cancer Center. This past semester, I worked on the 11th floor of The James, which is a critical care floor. There, I just helped staff with day-to-day activities and helped make work easier for them so that they could focus more on the patients. While there, I met so many interesting hospital staff (doctors, nurses, our volunteer coordinators, etc.)  who talked to me about what they do and how they got to where they are. Each person had a different story, and it was so interesting to see all of the routes that I could go to land my dream career in sports medicine. Also, many of the people that I met know people doing research or other exciting medical studies that I would potentially be involved in. Having a connection through The James and Ohio State has given me common ground to help network and meet these people.