Faculty Mixers!

December 1, 2015
by Rashelle

Community Getting Involved School/Life Balance

This year for the annual faculty/student mixer series, students were invited to partake in fun events organized by our student council professional development chairs. I was fortunate enough to be available to attend all three of them this year!

At the first mixer I got the opportunity to show off my (un)impressive bowling skills with Dr. Myka Persson, a previous professor, Carey Sokol, my past fieldwork coordinator, and Amber Bennett, who coordinated the Career Fair, which I attended the day after. It was awesome to see faculty members in such a fun, informal environment, which really allowed me to get to know them apart from the structured school work and meetings. 

The second faculty/student mixer was held at Urth caffe with Dr. Karrie Kingsley, one of my favorite professors, along with Dr. Tracy Jalaba and Dr. Lindsey Reeves, who recently completed their doctorate degrees at USC’s distinguished Faculty Practice. It was an honor to sit next to them over dinner, and to hear about their captivating journies of how they got to where they are today.

Lastly, after my final day of fieldwork at the Keck Hospital of USC, I got to celebrate it with, coincidentally, my fieldwork supervisors! Dr. John Margetis and Dr. Kim Lenington are two of USC’s finest clinical faculty, who taught me the ins and outs of how to intensely care for patients in an intensive care unit. If that was too cheesey, it must be from where my mind has drifted after all of those nachos we ate!

These intimate gatherings truly made me feel welcomed into the Trojan Family. Not only will I feel less intimidated when approaching these faculty members in the future, but also I was able to connect with first year students, who may have been intimidated by me! Every day, with every new person I meet, I see how large this network of Trojans is, and how supportive and encouraging they can be as we go through this journey together.

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