As a member of the cross country team, Hannah Hamilton '19 developed interpersonal and teamwork skills.
Her externship with the Kalamazoo County Health and Human Services also gave the biology major from Pinckney (MI) High School a taste of teamwork.
"I worked with Children's Special Health Care Services," she said. "This experience really opened my eyes to how imperative community services are to those that are in need."
Those skills will be valuable as she pursues her Master's of Public Health and Tropical Medicine at Tulane University.
"I am confident, thanks to all of my amazing professors, coaches, and mentors, that I have developed the skills to be fully prepared for graduate school," she said.
Hamilton studied abroad in San Jose, Costa Rica, then looked at her home state for her Senior Individualized Project, "The Role of Evidence-Based Medicine in Substance Use Disorder Treatment: Assessing the Quality and Gap in Care in Wayne County, Michigan."
The SIP focused on the opioid epidemic in Wayne County.
"I would like to acknowledge Professor Alison Geist (co-director of Community and Global Health) for aiding me in my SIP experience," Hamilton said. "Her dedication really helped me turn my project into something I was proud of."
Looking at her four years on the cross country team, Hamilton said: "Kalamazoo College Cross Country has become my family and I would not trade the last four years with my teammates for the world."
Kalamazoo College prepares its graduates to better understand, live successfully within, and provide enlightened leadership to a richly diverse and increasingly complex world. The College's 1,467 students come from 39 states and 28 countries. Through the K-Plan, Kalamazoo College provides an individualized education that integrates rigorous academics with life-changing experiential learning opportunities, including study abroad, career internships and externships, civic engagement and social justice work. K's student-faculty ratio of 13-to-1 allows for small classes and personal attention to individual needs; student-faculty interaction goes beyond the classroom to include working together on research projects, college committees, and community projects. At Kalamazoo College, we do more in four years so students can do more in a lifetime.