Students looking ahead to professional careers find plenty of support at WSU Vancouver—and also create their own opportunities.
Sometimes a bachelor’s degree is just the beginning. Many students are intent on careers that may require a year—or many more—of advanced education. Maybe it’s medicine or law, veterinary science or dentistry, college teaching, advanced research, an executive position or any number of other fields. Some young people begin working toward these goals as early as middle school.
For many students with such aspirations, WSU Vancouver is the first step. While the university does not offer a formal bachelor’s degree in, say, premedicine or prelaw, there are pathways leading in that direction and plenty of career counseling—from academic advisors to professors to their peers. Students interested in becoming medical doctors or other health professionals, for example, typically major in biology or neuroscience. WSU Vancouver will offer a basic medical sciences option for the biology degree starting in fall 2019. And although law school doesn’t usually require a specific major, many students who want to become attorneys lean more toward political science courses.
The Admissions Office recommends courses that support a student’s professional goals. Beyond that, much of the initiative comes from the students themselves.
“WSU Pullman offers a bachelor of arts in political science with a prelaw option,” said Lindy Volk, academic coordinator for public affairs, social sciences and sociology, who advises students interested in legal careers. “At WSU Vancouver, we don’t have a ‘prelaw’ concentration per se, but students who want to become attorneys often choose public affairs or social sciences as a major. Students can also get involved in other things, like the Pre-Law Society.”
The Pre-Law Society was started just two years ago by two junior students who wanted to go to law school—José Scott and Naomi Grande. The group’s faculty advisor is Laurie Collins-Levy, a lawyer and an adjunct professor who teaches criminal justice. Collins-Levy gives all the credit for building and running the club to the students.
“They did everything,” she said. “They founded the Pre-Law Society, created its constitution, planned all its activities, brought in guest speakers and created the annual mock trial event. Yes, they asked me to be the faculty advisor, and I am there for them if they need me, but frankly, they rarely do. And that's as it should be.”
Peer support
The Pre-Law Society is not the only club dedicated to providing education and support to a group of students who share professional interests. Another strong organization is the Pre-Health Club, whose members are looking to become physicians, pharmacists, optometrists, researchers and other health professionals. Aspiring dentists have their own club. And many other clubs with a professional focus don’t even use the “pre” designation, such as the Human Resource Society.
“Each organization operates somewhat differently based on the student leader and faculty involved,” said Brian Van Gundy, student activities coordinator.
The Pre-Health Club, for instance, puts on workshops, brings in speakers from professional schools and, as a community project, conducts a campus blood drive. The club’s president is Kaylee Grahnert, who describes herself as “a senior working on double degrees in biology and psychology while simultaneously completing all necessary prerequisites for medical school.”
The club is helping her work toward her long-term goal of becoming a physician. “The club provides opportunities for students to learn more about their options within the health care field, to be better prepared for applying to professional schools and to know how to stand out to an admissions board committee,” she said.
Elizabeth Hardin, a senior biology/psychology major who aims to become a pediatric physician, adds that the club serves a real need as a forum where members can “swap tips for different obstacles that present themselves as a premed student—and trust me, there are many.” She considers it “an additional step to prepare for the path toward getting into medical school, and sometimes even insight for the journey following medical school.”
Similarly, the Pre-Law Society meets weekly to give its members a professional boost, even holding law-school application sessions. “Having a club to engage with and meet guest speakers helps us along the right path,” Scott said. “It’s a way for us to stay connected and be resourceful about the process.” Scott and Grande, who graduated in 2018, served as club co-presidents in 2016/17. When they went on to be president and vice president of the student body, Steven Cooper became president in 2017/18. This year, the president is Andrea Grande, sister of Naomi.
Emily Earhart, academic coordinator and prehealth advisor, said the clubs offer numerous benefits. Not only do they help students learn how to organize, lead and advertise events, such as the blood drive or mock trial, but they also enable members to “make connections and be supportive of one another.”
An intense education
The Pre-Health Club broadly encompasses many health professions. Debra Wilmington, instructor and academic advisor, who herself has worked as a Ph.D. research scientist, now advises many prehealth students and is faculty advisor to the club. According to Wilmington, 85 percent of WSU Vancouver’s biology majors plan health careers of some sort, and “part of the process is figuring out what that is.”
She added, “One of the big things I push is job shadowing and getting experience in the field so that students get a reality check of what those careers really are and what a day in the life is like. They need to be both realistic and passionate about their choice.”
Students have found job shadowing and paid work opportunities with clinics, hospitals and emergency medical agencies, sometimes providing patient contact as nursing assistants or phlebotomists, sometimes serving as scribes or interpreters. Grahnert worked as an emergency medical technician in Ridgefield, Wash., for more than a year, and said it reinforced her love of medicine. She got to experience direct patient contact while also building “a foundation of knowledge in emergency medicine which serves me well in day-to-day life as well as in preparing for a career in medicine,” she said. Currently she shadows physicians at the Vancouver Clinic and volunteers at the Free Clinic of Southwest Washington.
“I encourage them to do volunteer work that may or may not be in the medical field,” Wilmington said, “such as working in a soup kitchen or needle exchange. Some do peer counseling—anything where they can work on that human connection.”
Personal growth
Why do students choose WSU Vancouver for preprofessional studies?
“I think it is difficult for an undergraduate program to give students a sense of medical school or what working as a physician will be like,” Grahnert said. “However, I do feel that WSU Vancouver has academically challenged me and provided me with a good work ethic and discipline, which will be of utmost importance in medical school and as a physician later.”
“I visited a lot of universities in the Pacific Northwest, but at WSU Vancouver I felt more like a person than a number,” said Pre-Law Society President Andrea Grande. “A smaller campus allows you to make a bigger impact.”
“The thing I love about being at this school is that our students are not the students whose path was paved for them,” Wilmington said. “My students are ones whose parents may not even know what you do to be a doctor. A lot of my students work full- or part-time. They get involved, and it’s not the traditional path sometimes.”
With rigorous academic majors, advisors committed to seeing students succeed, health professionals willing to provide mentorship, and career-oriented clubs providing support and advice, WSU Vancouver provides not only a solid education for aspiring professionals but also a sense of the professional demands they will face and the initiative, commitment, passion and drive required to make it in a demanding field. ■