In her four years as a human development major, senior Amanda Perez says she has "gone from pre-med to pre-confused." But the resume she has built tells a different story.
A Cornell Tradition fellow, Perez tried research as a freshman, "but that only showed me that I wasn't interested in research," she said. And her courses at Cornell also were showing her that it wasn't the hard-core science of medicine that was pulling her, it was the people side.
So in the second semester of her freshman year, Perez started training as a peer counselor at Contraception, Gynecology, and Sexuality Services (CGSS) at Cornell's Gannett Health Center.
"My job is advising students, one-on-one, about gynecological and reproductive health, birth control and disease prevention. It is the preventative side of medicine that is really interesting to me," Perez said.
Now as a senior, she is still counseling other students at CGSS.
Looking back, she said, her position there was the first of her experiences that turned her career plans away from med school and toward public health. "Even though I wasn't gung-ho pre-med, I still had strong interest in health care," she said.
Her newly found interest would take her across the globe. With funding through her Cornell Tradition fellowship, Perez has been a women's health advocate at Planned Parenthood of Nassau County, the Teenage Pregnancy and Parenting Program in New York City and at the Nyansiongo Maternity and Nursing Home in Kenya. While working alongside health care professionals, she was able to witness and develop health education programs in underserved, low-income areas, the kind of areas where, she said, education of this sort is needed most.
"I feel that if I went to medical school, I would be affecting populations on a micro-level, one person at a time. But through public health, I would be affecting huge populations at a time," Perez said.
She has applied to masters programs in public health at Columbia University and George Washington University and is eyeing the United Nations and the World Health Organization as potential employers.
While she is awaiting the decision from the two schools, Perez is getting ready to go to the Dominican Republic where she will be working with local populations again, this time researching the use of natural medicinal plants for pregnancy-related symptoms and labor.
She also is getting ready to graduate from Cornell this weekend -- a significant achievement in itself, since she is the first person in her family to attend college. Twelve members of her family will be at Commencement cheering her on, she said -- giving her strong support, as they always have. Her parents have been her biggest inspiration, she said. After fleeing their native Cuba in the 1960s, "many of their academic dreams were pushed aside," she said. "All of their dreams that weren't fulfilled were used as encouragement to help me fulfill my dreams."
Among her achievements, Perez is a recipient of a Cornell Tradition Senior Recognition Award, a $3,500 grant that winners can donate to either a non-profit organization or to establish a one-year fellowship. She has designated her award as a fellowship open to another Latina human ecology student. And she has named it the Marta and Jesus Perez Fellowship Award, in honor of her parents.
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