After four years of college some students can finally answer: "What do you want to be when you grow up?" To join the fields they aspire to enter, however, many students must first survive and succeed in graduate school. Students from a few of the most popular post-grad pursuits shared their strategy for making the cut.
Professor:\nAfter working for a few years after graduation, third-year College student Matt Leisten plans to enter an agricultural economics doctorate program and eventually become a college professor. "As a professor, you get to push the boundaries of knowledge, instead of just hitting them," Leisten said. "You have the potential to come up with something completely novel."
To help achieve his goal, Leisten became an economics major, a research/career co-chair of the economics club, and a member of the Fed Challenge team, a team of five students that competes to present the best monetary policy suggestion to the Federal Reserve.
Leisten also became interested in the environment when he discovered the field of environmental economics. To help prepare for a career in academia, Leisten has been conducting research since high school. He researched a prolific scientist who had studied heat islands, reading 50 of the scientist's scholarly papers in chronological order. "It was interesting to see how one paper led to another," Leisten said. "When one question was answered, another arose."
This past summer, as a research and publications intern at the Environmental Law Institute in Washington, D.C., Leisten investigated the economic ramifications of a new carbon tax in Austin, Texas. At the University, he helps graduate students, under the supervision of Environmental Sciences Prof. Bob Davis, with environmental research on urban heat islands.
"Using geographic information systems software, we try to predict the extent of the urban heat island based on land use," Leisten said.
Leisten is leaving the University with the same aspiration he entered it with.
"I looked back at my college admissions essay, and I had mentioned that I wanted to be an economics professor," he said.
And in some ways, Leisten already feels like he's entered his career. "It's not just school for me, it's a preview of what's to come," he said.
Pre-law:\nThird-year College student Natalie Affinito has dreamed of becoming a lawyer since the third grade. "I have been inspired by my dad, who's a lawyer, and movies like 'To Kill a Mockingbird' and 'Witness for the Prosecution,'" Affinito said.
The more Affinito immersed herself in law-related opportunities, the more confident she was that she had chosen the right profession. In high school, Affinito attended a mock trial camp, where she won an award for outstanding attorney. In college, she has declared a Philosophy, Policy, and Law, or PPL, major. "The PPL major is a perfect fit for me ... it lets me take a wide breadth of classes, most of which are reading and writing-intensive courses, to develop skills that are necessary to succeed in law school," Affinito said.
This past summer, Affinito interned at the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County, Pa. She spent the first half of the internship in the Civil Division, working under Judge Ronald Folino, and the second half in the Criminal Divison, working under Judge Anthony Mariani. In both divisions, she had the opportunity to observe trials, hear motions and plea agreements, and conduct research.
"I tried to soak in everything I could by watching trials and asking questions," Affinito said.
Affinito also had the opportunity to conduct legal research to help Folino write a negative opinion on the product line exception of successor liability, which says if a company acquires another company, it also incurs liability for products sold by the previous company.
"I taught myself how to use databases like Westlaw to find decisions Judge Folino could use for the opinion," Affinito said.
At the University, Affinito is involved in First Year Players and University Guides, which she said has helped improve her speaking and debating skills.
"If you are going to be a trial attorney, you need to at least be around theater to see how to present yourself and relate to an audience," she said.
Premed:\nFourth-year College student Rachel Penn became interested in science and medicine in high school, and she plans on expanding on these interests by becoming a doctor.
"I like being able to help people and fix some of their problems," Penn said.
Fourth-year College student Maria Chopivsky, who serves with Penn as co-president of the American Medical Students Association, is also attracted to the profession; she enjoys the pressure placed on doctors to perform.
"Every day you're presented with a different challenge," Chopivsky said. "Each case is unique and you have to treat it differently. I like that aspect, it's intriguing." Penn spent her summer preparing for the MCATs.
"I was living, sleeping, and breathing the MCATs," she said. Every day, she woke up at 7:30 a.m., studied for five hours on and off, took a break, went to her night class from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., and then went to sleep. What kept her going was knowing that if she studied hard for the MCATs during the summer, then she could enjoy her fourth year at the University.
Chopivsky, meanwhile, spent her summer doing research, a component that's practically a requirement for admission into medical school. She continued the cancer-related research that she was involved in during the school year.
"We take human pancreatic cancer, implant it into mice, treat them for a couple of months, and see their response to the drugs by tracking their growth and resistance every few weeks," Chopivsky said.
For Chopivsky, who watched a close family member struggle with the disease, there is a close personal connection to the research.
"It has the worst survival rate of all cancers, and it is the least understood," she said.
She finds this research to be incredibly rewarding, especially since one of her lab's drugs just got approved for use in trials with real patients.
"We get to see our work in the lab paying off in the real world," she said.
Like many premed students, both Penn and Chopivsky participate in medicine-related activities. Penn has volunteered in a free clinic through Madison House, joined the premed honor society AED, and traveled to Belize on a Medical Services trip during Spring Break to help set up free clinics in underprivileged communities.
"We invite doctors to talk about their experiences in the medical field and panels of medical school admissions officers to give us a better understanding of what it takes to get there," Penn said.
While all of these students have chosen different paths, their college experiences are similar in their focus and determination on a future career. They've managed to confidently answer: What are you going to be when you grow up?
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